I was working in the kitchen today, slaving over a hot stove and a cutting board and hoping my improvised recipe would delight and nourish and it occurred to me that all the time I spend every week, not just cooking, but also thinking about it, shopping for it, studying cookbooks and recipes on index cards and online, and all this time and effort and energy... It isn't wasted. It never felt wasted, but it occurred to me today that spending an hour or more a day, most days of the week, cooking for my family is one of the most valuable things I contribute. Not (just) because cooking real food reduces costs, but because it adds value.

Whether because of the failing economy or because I'm failing to market myself effectively, I'm not bringing a lot of financial reward into the household right now. Yet when I'm able to put a good meal in front of my wife after she's had a long day at work, I know there are more important rewards in life to invest yourself in, and that I'm a success in the areas that matter to me most.

My mom taught me -she tried to teach me- how to make her spaghetti sauce. If I'm able to remain a househusband, if I'm able to continue investing myself in showing my love through food, maybe in another couple of years ... Maybe I'll have the skill required to share what made her sauce so special, in making a sauce that my family will associate with love, happiness, family... We're Italian, it's all in the sauce, right?

Saturday, September 27th, 2008, from about 10AM to 3PM
SE corner of Greenway & Tatum (in N. Phx / Scottsdale)
Sponsored by Angel's Serenity & Intatto Coffee

Intatto Coffee will be closed -the owners have to leave town somewhat last-minute- but this is part of their semi-regular local Art Walk series. I also showed at their August Art Walk. It's a very casual atmosphere, relatively little foot traffic compared to downtown (more on that in a moment), so it's easier to take your time and really look at everything that's being shown. I'll be glad to talk with you about all my different books, and my art, and would even be glad to do readings if you like. I'm also told there will be live music by Amber Gaia, so it should be pleasant all around.

Friday, October 3rd, 2008, from about 6PM to 10PM
I'll be in the "Roosevelt Row" street closure / booths area
(Either on Garfield between 4th & 6th, or on 5th S. of Garfield)

This is part of the Phoenix First Fridays Art Walk, and October is when "art season" really seems to start in Phoenix, so I expect a lot of foot traffic and big crowds, despite the downturning economy. I'll still be glad to talk to you about any of my art, or my books, but I am definitely aware that a lot of people coming to the Art Walk downtown want to try to "see everything" and don't want to stand still too long. It's a lot of fun, especially if you like crowds and people-watching with your arts and crafts. I spoke to the Roosevelt Row organizers today and am told that there will be a stage set up at the end of 5th Street with live music.

I bought some interesting 4x4" canvases today, and I'm going to try to have them ready for sale before the Art Walk on the 27th. I want to put as much effort into them as I would for any of my other pieces, but to have art that's priced a little cheaper, probably $15 each. (Unless I do something weird/sculptural/with-lights to them...) I've tried to keep all my art at affordable prices, and while I've been creating larger and larger pieces (with larger and larger prices), I'd also like to do some smaller pieces with smaller prices, to suit a wide range of budgets. Come out and see what I come up with!

Not today so much, so far, which is what I want to write about here, today.

I guess I can start with last night (it's part of today, on account of it started after midnight, right?), when I was playing Spore.  I'd waited, like a good boy, to start playing until around 5PM - after working from around 7AM.  And I paused for a couple of hours when Mandy came home from work to get dinner together & eaten and watch a movie with her and hang out a bit.  Then it was right back to Spore.  Played through from Cell stage until, at 2:30AM this morning, I clicked the button to advance from Civilization stage to Space Stage (actually, a bit past that - I designed my space ship, first), when my computer froze up, trying to load the Space stage.  And by 3AM I had confirmed that ... apparently I hadn't hit save all afternoon. I guess I'm used to things just ... working.  I do most of my computing on a Mac, and although when writing a novel or working in Photoshop I habitually hit save every little piece of progress, I don't remember the last time something crashed and made that habit necessary.  I do most of my gaming on consoles, which seem to auto-save or just use checkpoints (ie: map-based auto-save), and even the PC gaming I've been doing lately has been similar.  (Mandy and I have been playing through American McGee's Grimm games every week, and although a level or two there has had a bug, I never had to click save and I never had to go back more than to the beginning of the scene I was on at the time.)  Spore does do a fair amount of auto-saving along the way:  Every iteration of my creature, from cell through civilized, was saved and shared online as soon as I'd designed it, along with every building and every vehicle.  In fact, while I was playing, so as not to interrupt my play, Heath would just go to Spore.com and look up his account (because he paid for the game, and it won't let me log in with mine), and he could look at what I'd been building.  Yet the planet I'd played through on, the progress I'd made, all the bonuses and advancements I'd earned through roughly 8 hours of gameplay - all gone.  The planet isn't even named, right now.  bleh.  So, I went to bed, frustrated.

Not sure how long it took me to fall asleep (felt like a while), but I didn't wake up today until Noon.  Noon!  That's not right.  If I'm not on vaguely the same schedule as Mandy, things don't seem to work out very well around here.  And not just in the husband-wife relations department.  The best hours to record audio (for the audiobooks I'm working on - did you see the new podcast?) are between about 6AM or 7AM and 1PM, when thumping vehicles begin driving around the neighborhood.  Weekends are out (there's almost always a party or a lawn tool going), and night time is out (because my recording setup is in the bedroom, where Mandy sleeps).  Waking up at Noon = no recording today.  As I'm writing this, I'm uploading episodes 4 & 5 of Lost and Not Found to the servers that feed Podiobooks.com - I want to have them up way in advance, as I finish them, to maintain a "buffer" in case something else goes wrong (I just spent two weeks waiting on a replacement part for my audio setup last month, for example) - but that's certainly not the same thing as recording Episode 6, now is it?

Anyway, up at midday, I tried to make breakfast.  I won't go into all the details, but I was trying to cook some sausage and managed to pour boiling pig fat over my right hand, burning several places across my palm and a few place around my pinky, even between my fingers.  It didn't blister (right away), so the burns aren't that bad, but for the next couple of hours I just tried to relax, catch up on email a bit, and watch a movie - ie: to try not to think about the pain or to move my hand too much.  It doesn't hurt too much, right now, but ... sigh.  Not a great start to the day.

Then I tried to get a few little things done I'd been putting off.  I needed to scan some documents for my father & email them to him.  Fix some problems with the Episode 1 file of LaNF and re-upload it.  Be sure 2-5 were correct and upload them (just finished).  Take cash reimbursement from Mandy's school (we sometimes have to buy stuff at Sam's Club for student council and get reimbursed) to the bank, and as long as I'm going, Heath wrote me a check for last month's utilities as well.  That didn't work out so well.  I changed clothes (I had originally got dressed in clothes for painting, which I may still do today), took the cash & the check to the bank, and the woman at the bank wouldn't accept Heath's check.  His handwriting isn't the best, but everything was there and more legible than most every signature I've seen... anyway, she only deposited the cash and spent a few minutes trying to tell me how he should write out his checks.  So the bank deposit didn't even work out right.  Heath wrote out a new check, I endorsed it, and he went over to the bank to explain to the woman there why she was wrong not to take it, and to deposit it into my account.  Hopefully that worked out okay.

Anyway, so far, today:  Not great.  By 4:30PM, I'd basically not got much of anything done, and Mandy'll be home relatively soon.  Maybe I'll get some more painting done (the big one isn't dry yet from yesterday, but maybe I can work on 'gaping' (you'll have to wait and see, I'm doing a video)), and since my schedule is off and I'll probably be up all night, maybe I'll get some writing done, too.  My novel stalled out (sort of - I've just been working on other things) a week or more ago.  I think I'll be able to finish it in a straight day or two of hard writing, though.  I'm thinking of heading out to a coffee shop some morning soon and trying to plow through this monster in a couple 8-12 hour days.  Maybe.  Writing a blog post is good, though.  I don't do nearly enough of that, lately.

Point your "Podcatcher" (ie: iTunes, for most people) to: http://modernevil.com/Podcast/?feed=podcast

Incidentally, I simultaneously added a "news feed" to modernevil.com, where I'll try to post things like the upcoming Art Walk at Intatto Coffee (9/27/08) ... so there's relevant information there beyond book descriptions and sales pitches.

The podiobooks.com feed will be strictly the book by itself, same as for Dragons' Truth.  The Modern Evil Press podcast (Should that be just "Modern Evil Podcast", or "Modern Evil Press Podcast"?  Hrm...)  will also include short stories and future audiobooks (including the followup novel to Lost and Not Found I am currently writing) as well as a small amount of "chatter" and promos for other podcasts / podiobooks I want to spread the word about.  It should be an ongoing / continuous podcast, going forward.  bleh.

I never really wanted to do a podcast of my own (though I did try my hand at audio blogging now and again, long before podcasts became popular, and it recently occurred to me that I was doing a sort-of podiobook back in 2001, when I "released" a serialized audiobook as I was recording it, week by week sending out installments... by snail mail, rather than the as-yet-uninvented RSS), so I'm not sure how much "chatter" I'll actually be doing, but at least some more information and advertisement than in the 20-second intro/outro I did for the podiobooks.com version.  At least to remind people that there are paper versions of the books available, and perhaps updates on what else I'm working on that week, instead of just saying "see modernevil.com for more info..."

I've never been much good at maintaining regular content-update schedules, so we'll just have to wait and see how things go with the podcasts.  I've got 5 episodes of Lost and Not Found recorded and -nearly- ready for upload.  I can record/edit/mix roughly an episode a day at this point (since I've done most of the music and planning work in advance... though my crazy plans require a certain amount more work on the music for a few future episodes... you'll have to wait and listen to find out what I mean), and I expect there to be in the vicinity of 15 episodes total, so even without working on it every day, I should still be a couple of months ahead before my birthday rolls around, which will make things easier in that regard.

Anyway, along with the podcast, I plan to be adding a proper sort of "news feed" to modernevil.com (and to wretchedcreature.com as well) with updates on things like the next Art Walk at Intatto Coffee (September 27th!  Come and see my latest art, and get books signed!) or... well, I'll probably go do the Phoenix Art Walk October 3rd, as well.  And I need to throw together a website specifically for Lost and Not Found, like I did for Dragons' Truth ... except I need to let people know this one exists, rather than putting it up late and not really linking to it.  I own lostandnotfound.com already.  In fact, I've put a couple of media files there, already:  Listen to a "five minute" preview of the Lost and Not Found audiobook, or grab the 60-second promo for Lost and Not Found to share with your friends/blog-readers/podcast-listeners/pets/self/et cetera.

That's it for now... getting sleepy. Been up (and working) since before 7AM.  Mostly on the audiobook.  Forgot (slash was too busy for) to paint, today.  In the middle of at least 4 new paintings, and have another I need to photograph & get online... Exciting stuff.  And did I mention I'm over halfway through the new novel?  I'm sure that'll take up some of the days I'm not recording & editing audio between now and forever...  So, lots of stuff in the works, I hope you tune in, and I'll try to post again soon.

Over the course of the day I sold (and signed) several books (good thing I brought them along, instead of just the art, eh?), and talked to a lot of people about the paintings I brought, and ran into a couple of old friends.  Then, when I thought for sure I'd make more money from books than art at an Art Walk (which is about the opposite of my typical average sales numbers), in the last hour of the day, I sold one of my latest paintings, 'fibonacci series #1'.  Yay!

Between these actual sales and the fact that I didn't have to pay for the privilege of setting up (well, aside from all the $$ we spent eating and drinking at Intatto over the course of the day...), it was infinitely better than First Fridays.  No, seriously, I've never sold more than a single paperback (and usually less) at the First Fridays Art Walk.  Maybe in the fall, but until and unless and in a few weeks I'll be at Intatto again.  I'll let you know when I know more.

I'm told the event officially starts at 11AM, and according to the sign on the door they close at 6PM, so I guess we'll be done by then, right?

If you live in the area, or if you haven't had a chance to come see my art in person at the Art Walks downtown this summer, or if you just want to come out and show your support for indie business and indie artists, you should come have a look and a cuppa.

Intatto Coffee Art Walk
August 23rd, 2008, from 11AM to 6PM
4847 E. Greenway Rd., Scottsdale, AZ
(Greenway & Tatum)

Depending on how recording goes and how quickly I read and how long each episode is (there are no chapter breaks in Lost and Not Found, so I have to find places in the story where it makes sense to stop), I expect to have somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen to twenty-five episodes for the full book. This puts the length of time for the serialized release at roughly three to six months. I would like to have the novel I'm currently working on come out concurrent with or prior to the completion of that audio program, since it is almost -but not quite- a sequel to Lost and Not Found, and the cross-promotion should probably be helpful. Also, since I expect to be able to do most or all of the recording of the audio version of this new novel during that period as well, so that people could start listening to one immediately after finishing the other. I'm trying to build an audience, see?

In order to get even a single episode of the audio book ready for publication I need both the text of the book recorded and to [select|compose] a [piece|pieces] of music for the opening, closing, and as a bridge in between different sections of the same episode. There is also the question of "bed music," which I understand means music which plays softly in the background of the entire audiobook. Bed music has the benefit of covering the tiny amount of background noise which cannot be avoided without [buying thousands of dollars of gear plus building a soundproof recording booth | removing it in post-production and somewhat distorting the sound of your voice in the process], but also represents the challenge of finding music which relates to the story and setting without becoming distracting or annoying to readers, plus that of finding thirty to sixty minutes' worth of it for each episode (depending on the length of your episodes). On one hand, I'd like to have bed music, to create the perception of a better recording. On the other hand...

Well, on the other hand, I don't like to select music, I like to compose it myself. Not that I have any experience composing music - I'm certainly not trained, and I'd pause before describing myself as self-taught. I haven't even looked up a basic how-to online. I just like to screw around once in a while, whistling, with an instrument, or in GarageBand on my iBook - and I've only spent perhaps a total of a few weeks in my life (a day here, a couple days there) doing anything musical at all before this year. On the other hand, I sit in front of an piano or pick up an accordion or a guitar and, after a few minutes of re-acquainting myself with the interface, music comes out. I sit down with an instrument and melodies build from my fingers. Not proper songs, usually, but in opposition to what I've seen happen with other people at untrained instruments (how do they get it to sound so bad?), something musical. Anyway, starting with Dragons' Truth I began composing my own music and I plan to do so for my future audio releases.

For the purpose of opening, closing, and bridge music I only need about sixty seconds of music, max. For podcasts it's a good idea not to put more than about thirty seconds of anything in before getting to the story itself, or more than about sixty seconds of anything at the end. More than that, and people tend to skip it. For some listeners, even sixty seconds it pushing it for a closing. Most promos (which theoretically I could get other podcasts to play in their episodes) are sixty seconds or less, as well. So for these things you don't need more music than this. Easy, right?

Would you believe I spent the better part of last week (nearly four full days) working on the music I want to use for Lost and Not Found, and the end result -at four thirty in the morning yesterday- was a sixty second audio file? What if I told you it was just a first draft? That I spent the first three days scrawling in a notebook, obsessively crunching non-base10 math by hand, creating page after page of numbers, up to 24 digits in length (so far), and that I spent the fourth day transcoding the results into the computer as music? Music that I couldn't guess the sound of before I was finished entering it in and hit play. Music that I think I like with a little faster tempo so maybe I'll have to do another several hours' math to get to a full minute again. Oh, and incidentally, music the math for which also creates the possibility of a generic sort of non-repeating but boundless melody, which I may be able to use as bed music? Which simple mathematical variations on could change the tone to match the four different stories in the novel that I'd like to each have individualized music? Hooray, crazy! Hooray, math! Maybe.

I'll have to spend a couple more days entering the numbers into the system in various configurations to see if the calculations continue to sound good or if I'll need to start from scratch (or worse, just modify this melody system heavily - I prefer the beauty of math right now) to create working music. And once the music is ready, it can be combined with the spoken word recordings of the book's text and the book's promos, and once that's done I can submit it and start serializing it. Which reminds me, I really need to write a promo for Lost and Not Found. If you've read it, how do you think I could sell it to new [readers|listeners]?

One other little thing on the subject of the audiobook - since we don't really have the room (or the money) to create a dedicated (or even isolated) recording space, I've set up in the bedroom. The other day while trying to adjust after working so that people could get by, a piece of equipment fell down and the jack on my headphones broke. These are relatively nice, closed ear headphones of sufficient quality to do near-professional quality audio work (really, my ears aren't trained to do well enough to know the difference between these headphones and the ones that cost 5x-10x), and the only thing wrong with them right now is they can't plug in to an audio source. All they need is the jack cut off and a new one spliced/soldered on, though I don't trust myself to do a good enough job repairing them to end up with quality sound. So I took them to a local repair shop Monday (and called a second one) and the cost to have a professional repair it is the same as the cost to order another set online (depending on shipping cost). Sigh. I can't really record any more until I have [new|repaired] headphones. So in reality it's a good thing I'm spending days and weeks on the musical portion of this project right now, since I can't get any more done on the spoken portion.

I'm sure I'll post again when I have a promo. Oh, and when I have a site design for lostandnotfound.com, which I would like to be able to launch simultaneously with the Podiobook, and whose design should allow for the new book to be advertised along side it. Sigh. What should that look like? What should it do?

Due to a "paperwork" problem (which is insane, since the entire thing is digital), my transcripts took several tries and over two months to get from PVCC to ASU, so I didn't get officially re-admitted to ASU until a couple of weeks ago. I promptly went down to ASU for advisement and to submit some paperwork to their financial aid department, neither of which I could do before being re-admitted. The financial paperwork was a revision of our financial position, since the FAFSA was based on last year's taxes and this year I'm not working full time and expect to make something like $20k less as a household this year over last year, depending on how sales go in the next six months. (Anyone want to offer $20k for a painting? It would be the height of irony, far better than buying 'I Am Rich' for your iPhone.) Show the change in financial status, write a letter about it, fill out a form, and they'll re-consider your financial need and revise their financial offer.

While waiting two months for a file to be electronically transmitted less than 25 miles, we had time to consider -at length- many of the pros and cons of my attending school, and its feasibility. Notwithstanding the immense increase in our personal debt that the student loans would create (student loans being one of the least terrible forms of debt on your credit report), there was plenty to consider. If attending school full time, would I have [any|enough] time to work on personal projects, new art, new books, et cetera? How much money would need to be offered above the cost of attendance to cover living expenses, including the cost of driving back and forth to Tempe? What is the real value of a degree? Would I be able to cope with Academia on a constant basis for three to four more years? Would I learn anything worthwhile that I couldn't just teach myself? On and on, back and forth, in conversation, thought, and prayer while we waited...

By the time I managed to get PVCC to actually send the relevant information to ASU and get re-admitted there, I had determined both what the financial aid offer needed to be in order to attendance to be financially possible (ie: without causing us to starve even faster) and that if re-admitted and appropriate financial aid was offered I would be attending this Fall. The initial aid offer was based on "zero need" from last year's tax numbers, and was about 60% of what we would actually need, all in Unsubsidized loans (which means that interest accrues while you attend school). Friday I got the letter from ASU advising of their updated offer (which I had seen online this time last week, but wanted to wait for the paperwork, in case that wasn't their final revision) of aid, which was based on a need which they had adjusted by almost exactly the amount more we needed to be offered to afford school. Except that despite the significant change in calculated need, the dollar amount of the "new" offer was exactly the same. A little over half of it was now in Subsidized loans (which means that interest doesn't start accruing until you're done with school) and the rest was still in Unsubsidized loans.

Well, fuck. That doesn't help, not at all. Not in the slightest. Except that it does make my decision for me: I cannot attend ASU this Fall.

So I've already gone through, this weekend, and declined their insufficient financial aid offer and withdrawn myself completely from classes. I should probably send a couple of courtesy emails to my adviser and a professor in the Art Department I'd emailed to say I was coming back... thank them and let them know I'm not... But otherwise, that thought, that dream, is over for now. It's back to the grindstone for me (not that I've really been away), back to trying to make enough to eat from my art and my books.

Alas, it is now August 12th and I am only 120 pages into a manuscript I'm aiming for 300 pages with. And while I almost never know where one of my books is going until it gets there, the nagging feeling that I don't know where this book is going just keeps pounding away at the inside of my mind. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the book has no conflict. No antagonist. No plot, that I am aware of, so far. This is not a new problem; most of what I write seems to have these [features|problems]. Dragons' Truth didn't really have a plot, an antagonist, or much in the way of meaningful conflict until chapters 13 and 14 (of 15) - and many readers agree with me that it doesn't really have a good ending; it just stops, after an anticlimactic confrontation of only words. Lost and Not Found has four main stories in it, none of which have any real conflict or antagonist beyond the protagonist's internal struggles and a couple of catty women who serve as little more than a foil to same. The Untrue Tales series was my attempt to write what I thought people wanted, and is chock full of conflict, sex, and a wide variety of antagonists -- and frankly, I don't like writing it, much, though there are several more books required to finish what I've started there.

This new novel is actually set in the same world as Lost and Not Found, and one of its main characters is featured prominently in the first couple dozen pages of that book. Everyone else is new. The setting is new. The theme may very well be the same, though I am not the best judge of such things - in my books or in anyone else's. If you've read Lost and Not Found (which is available at modernevil.com as a free eBook in, like, eight different eBook formats -including the Kindle, if you own one- so what's your excuse for not reading it? Paying is just one of your options), the story starts with Paul, who was predicting a sort of a doomsday at the beginning of Lost and Not Found. If you read the whole book, you'll see that his doomsday comes, right on schedule - in a way. This book follows Paul, shows where he went to try to escape that world-changing event, and the lives of some of the other people who survived it and who live where he retreated to. Since some of Lost and Not Found's timeline overlaps this new book's timeline (and some occurs years later) and most of the characters are not (at least, not yet) in this book, I'm wary to call it a sequel. But it's definitely in the same world.

Okay, a little more info about that: In early drafts of the book which turned into Lost and Not Found, there was another section after what is currently the end of that book. Like, twenty-two thousand words. After leaving Haven, ten years after the main story of Lost and Not Found, the main characters travel on to a flying city called Skythia and take up residence. They find Paul living there, among other things. That part of the story was cut out -in its entirety- from Lost and Not Found. This new book takes place in between the first section of Lost and Not Found (ie: the last place we hear about Paul in that book) and the section that was cut. So far, we're within a few months' time, so nowhere near the point where Lost and Not Found's main characters would enter the story - though I won't rule that out at this point, since I have no idea where this story is going.

Anyway, mentally, the presence of Skythia in a part of Lost and Not Found that was cut completely puts a few restraints on what can happen in this novel. Not in a bad way, necessarily. More like, I know vaguely where Paul -and Skythia- will be in ten years, as though this was all something that had actually happened and I'm merely documenting it with these books. Maybe I'll work the cut part of that book into the end of this one. Maybe I'll start a future sequel with it. Maybe it'll remain cut out forever (or until I've died and someone decides to publish a new "more complete" version of Lost and Not Found containing the "lost ending" ... bleh. Oooh, or maybe when I feel I've got enough readers that it would be profitable to put out such an edition, like the 'anniversary' editions of The Princess Bride with a new foreward here and a new chapter five years later and a new cover and a new afterward ten years later and so on...). Any way it ends up, the presence of that part of the story in my mind, in the universe of my imagination, creates a constraint on this novel. Even if I introduce the supervillain character I've been trying to wedge in, the city cannot be destroyed (not without being rebuilt) and Paul cannot be killed (not without being resurrected) nor politically ruined (I'm not telling). The utopian nature of Skythia and the basics of their government cannot change significantly. Et cetera, et cetera.

So, that's what I'm not writing right now. It doesn't yet have a title, but it does have zombies, robots, a utopian flying city, drama, politics, many fantasy races (elves, faeries, Kwytzwyk, centaur, &c.), ooh, and maybe dinosaurs soon. I'm not sure when it'll be done, but I'm now trying to aim for it to come out in paperback around the same time the Podiobook release of the Lost and Not Found audiobook is complete.

I read the preceding pages. I looked at the sentence. My hands sprang into motion, the keys of the typewriter clacking away noisily as the words formed on the page, and then ... well, then the sentence started giving me trouble. It got longer and longer and, as it grew, it became less and less coherent. Where did this sentence think it was going? In the time I can usually pour out a couple of pages all I had managed was to mire myself in the first sentence I'd attempted. I XX'd out several words, cut the sentence short and -relatively- understandable, and stepped away from the typewriter. I finished my research on Klein bottles (one of the things that managed inexplicably to wedge its way into the sentence (which you will now be able to look for in the finished book, to find the troubled phrase)) and then came here.

To blog. Because I've been meaning to write something here for a while now, but keep either having something better to do (sleep, work on my novel, sleep, et cetera) or not enough to say.

Although that isn't really the case, is it? I always have something to say. And I'm working on a lot of projects right now, have a lot of things coming up, going away, et cetera. So what is it? One long post, or a lot of little posts? I think a lot of little posts. I'm making a list right now of subjects to cover, so I don't forget them.

It's a pretty basic idea: Old media's old ideas about reviews don't work in the new digital world.

Not just because fewer and fewer book reviews are being published, and not just because the old media isn't interested in new media, independent and self-publishers, and anyone who happens to use the 'new' tech of print-on-demand (unless they "hit it big", sell out, and stop being those things). The old ideas don't work for reasons I discussed here semi-recently: More books are being written and published than ever before, and more than could ever be reviewed in the old media without overwhelming everything else. Over a thousand new books a day in North America alone, last year. Heck, five of those were mine. So what's the solution for getting all these new books reviewed? Heckifiknow. But I have an idea for getting some of them reviewed.

How about creators themselves -rather than just pro and amateur reviewers- review each other's work? There could be some sort of central site where authors could log in and connect with each other and readers could come and see all the reviews in a central, searchable, well-organized location. The reviews could be done quid-pro-quo, ie: I'll review yours if you review mine, and every book review then brings visibility to both works (because there's always that "[name of reviewer] is the author of books such as [blah] and [bleh] and writes a blog at [blerg]" at the bottom of a review). Authors could exchange PDFs (MP3s, HTML files, URLs, et cetera), or probably, if they wanted a paper copy of the book, send them a pBook at cost (instead of full retail, since you're getting a review, but also because none of us wants to go broke trying to get internet reviews). Reviews could then be cross-posted to the authors' blogs, linked form their books' sites, et cetera... Increasing the visibility of the review site. And the site would be able to scale better than most of the solo-blogger-reviewers out there, since every new author that wanted to be reviewed would have to become a reviewer. It should be media-agnostic, since we're all internet people, here: eBook, audiobook, POD book, dynamic hyperbook, whatever, it's all good. Lots of duplicate reviews are (I think) good, since different people have different opinions on different books - book reviews aren't objective. A system similar to the one they use at MiniBookExpo For Bloggers could be used (except not just for Canadians), so one could be restricted to three (or so) pending reviews at a time.

Obviously, such a site would take a certain amount of work to be put up and maintained, but since it's powered by the strengths of the network (each independent author / publisher handles their own distribution of the books, and is in charge of posting their own reviews, and for generating traffic to the site, and the more authors are involved the better the whole thing works), it's mostly a matter of getting it off the ground.

Ooh, or does this exist already, and I don't know about it? Point me in the right direction. I'll sign right up. I should be doing more reading, myself, and adding the selfish motivation of getting my own books reviewed sure would help get me to review other people's works. I bet it'd do the same thing for yours. Know anyone who could help put this thing together?

But that's not what I wanted to post about. I had this dream...

I don't want to say something as simple as "I dreamed about her," because I'm not sure that's true, though she certainly happened to be in the dream.  But I suppose that is how it is said.  I was woken from sleep a little after One AM, and found myself trying way too hard to get back into the dream, because easalle was there.  As dreams do, the details are fading, but the basics I can remember are this:  I was on a sort of walking tour with a group of people, going to see various people give presentations / speeches / readings in their homes, all on a common theme.  I had the distinct impression that it was somehow related to NaNoWriMo, perhaps that it was, in fact, part of National Novel Writing Month's activities that year.  The "theme" or idea that everyone was supposed to have been presenting on -perhaps that they were supposed to have written their novel about, and were supposed to be presenting re: their novels- was "airplanes" or air travel or some such.. that detail has faded, but not enough to be gone, just ... smudged.  And the entire time I was following along with the group, taking one presentation after another, I was dreading that our tour guide would announce the next location was hers.  And then, of course, he announced the next address and I leaned over to the only person in the group I knew -I have no recollection of who this was supposed to be; someone familiar with the situation, involved in NaNoWriMo, who doesn't hate me and then apparently someone larger than I am, physically, both in height and moreso in girth- and said "that's her."  It wasn't the address she lived at when I knew her, three and a half years ago, but it was a valid address (now faded to incomprehensibility - 422 something'th place or somesuch) and I knew immediately that it was hers.  My companion and I had a hushed argument on the way over about it (something along these lines, though the exact words are lost to the Dreaming: "you don't have to go in, I'll stay outside with you," "you shouldn't have to stay outside on account of me," "you shouldn't have to stay out either," "I don't want to cause any problems...") and when we arrived, we were with the last of the group, hanging back, outside a classroom where she was presenting.  There were a few other people outside the room; apparently all the desks had filled up already, but even as I tried to convince my companion to go in without me, not to hold back for my sake, I slipped into the back of the room and set in a desk at the back of the room in the corner by the open door.  There she was, at the front of the class, and I don't know if she saw me, and I was somewhat hoping she wouldn't, and before long she crossed the room and sat down facing the same direction as the class so she could work a projector for her presentation.  It was weird, because I thought she was using an overhead projector -the kind you use with transparencies- but she was showing photos from some sort of road trip, but the images were actually short videos, the sort you would take with a digital still camera, and I can't remember hearing her presentation but I remember thinking it wasn't about airplanes or air travel, and whose little blue convertible sports car is that, and who is that guy she's with, that's not her husband -it was some blond guy that looked like a celebrity I recognized but can't think of the name of now- and so I was sitting in the back, in the dark, in the corner watching her give this sort of video/photo slide show and talk to this whole group of people about this thing and all these shots of her and this guy having a great time in this little blue convertible sports car on a road trip someplace nice, with trees and water and small towns, and I don't know if it was the weather or my wife rolled over or what, but suddenly I was awakened.  And I couldn't get back into the dream, let alone sleep - I didn't know what time it was, but it turned out I'd already had about 8hrs sleep.

And the curtain was a little open, so there was light coming in from outside, painted across the wall in front of me.  The light was pink, which means weather to me, since I live in the desert, and then it strobed for a second or two - literally like someone nearby was using a strobe light, though it must have been lightning.  I crawled over to where I could peek directly out the window at the sky, and yes- it did look like weather, a uniform pink sky -and I whispered to the cat who sleeps at the foot of the bed and was now inches from my head "what interesting weather we're having..."

But I couldn't get back to sleep, and I couldn't stop thinking about her, about the dream, and my iPhone wasn't in the room because I'd only just laid down for a nap, not "gone to bed" at 6PM, so I couldn't just sit in bed and look her up.  Got up, relieved myself, came out to the living room, went out the front door for a bit to look at the sky - looked like moments from rain, and it was.  Came in, set down with my iPhone and googled easalle for a bit.  Not a lot to see.  Looks like she's still alive, though, so maybe my irregular prayers for her safety are helping (admittedly, she is one "her" in a long list whose health and safety I pray for once in a while, but she has not been left off the list since I first loved her).  And maybe she dreamt the same dream tonight, and maybe she saw me there, and maybe this is some other sort of sign, some other sort of reason, some other sort of omen, and maybe it's nothing.  Maybe [name removed] is reminding me about what happened between her and [different name removed] after the exorcism, so I don't make the same mistake with the demons I'm confronting right now.  Maybe the dreaming mind is random, full of happenstance, and ought not to be thought long on by the conscious mind.  I'll try to put this behind me; putting it down into words helps.  Now it's here, instead of in me.

The rain seems to have passed.

Time to get to work.

So, the formats Dragons' Truth is now available in are:

Digital, for free under :

• E-Book in any of (currently) 7 DRM-free formats
• Episodic Podiobook subscription

Physical, for $:

• Paperback book for $12.99
• Audiobook on 4 CDs for $24.99
• Audiobook on 1 MP3 CD for $12.99
• Kindle E-Book, list price: $8.35 (usually available for $6.68)

You can also listen to the first chapter of Dragons' Truth for free without signing up for a Podiobooks.com account by visiting dragonstruth.com.  If you enjoy what you hear, please consider buying the audiobook on CD, on MP3 CD, or in paperback.  If you don't want to pay full price, there are usually stores listed at AbeBooks or in the Amazon Marketplace that will sell you new copies of the paperback at a significant discount (and I still get my share of the wholesale cost - though obviously, ordering directly through modernevil.com is the best way to support me as an independent creator, I understand the need to be frugal), and you still get a "real" book instead of data on a disk.

Oh, and one more thing: If you do decide to read the book for free online, or listen to the audiobook for free through Podiobooks.com, could you please take a couple of minutes and review it?  You can rate/review it at Podiobooks.com directly, Amazon reviews are always helpful, blog posts are great, even a < 140 character review on Twitter or Plurk would be good.  I will gladly link to any reviews, blog posts, SM profiles, et cetera from both dragonstruth.com and this blog, so please let me know if you do write something about any of my books.  (Even if you just talk about what you didn't like!  I can certainly work to improve future releases.)  Oh, and be sure to tell your friends, too.  I'm sure they'd enjoy it.

So, I know I didn't blog about it before we left, but Mandy and I are on "vacation" right now.  We had considered a long road trip, including the RoboGames last weekend in SFO, plus fun road-trip attractions such as Hearst Castle, Yellowstone (her father lives near there), Devil's Rock, Mt. Rushmore, et cetera... but decided (primarily because of money) that we would instead go straight to Laramie & Cheyenne, WY where her family and friends live, and come straight back.  Not just saving on gas, but on admission to attractions, inevitable hotel costs in SFO (it's reasonable to sleep in the car overnight at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, or a WalMart parking lot in a small town, but less so in a major city like SFO), and the additional cost of so many more days of eating on the road (we've been eating a LOT of PB&J, but one can only take so much of that...), we decided that whatever much fun those things might be, for less than 1/3 the cost we could still visit her family (I've never met Mandy's mother, and Mandy wants to meet her new niece while still a baby) and buy Rock Band, which has already provided more hours of entertainment than one day & night in SFO (ie: the cost of just a night in a hotel room and a meal for two in SFO).  Anyway, we looked at maps a bit and the "fastest" route (per Google Maps, and our own reckoning) straight to Laramie and back is about 2200 miles.  So, I fiddled around, got us off interstates for the most part, added interesting stops like Roswell and Los Alamos, NM, and Moab, UT (read: Arches and Canyonland National Parks) to the route, and still came up within 1/2 a gallon of gas of the original 2200 miles, with less stress (ie: aggressive interstate drivers) and prettier views, and things to look at.

Right now, we're in Laramie, WY, where Mandy's friends from University live.  She did two Bachelor's degrees here at University of Wyoming, and lived with some of these people for much of that time, so they're "like family" to her.  I've met Tessa before, she came to Phoenix last year, she's pretty nice, we get along fine, we have things in common and can speak intelligently about a variety of topics freely. Today we hung out with her, walked around part of "historic downtown" Laramie together, and had a nice day of it.  Tessa's sister seemed nice, if quiet, as well.

Then there are the others.  The boys.  Linus and Flynn.  We have a lot of shared interests.  They do an online comic (I've done 12 different online comics at various times, myself, plus collaborated on several others), they're mac users, sci fi geeks, Linus is interested in religious studies, philosophy, Japanese culture, et cetera, and Flynn is an artist as well... And these are just a few of the things that came up in conversation in a couple of hours today; from talking with Mandy there's a lot more that we (theoretically) have in common.  Even a lot of political and economic ideas, which I rarely can speak about without raising ire.  And yet.

And yet, most of the time today, when they got to talking, all I could do was keep my mouth shut.

One might say, "It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut."

Linus and Flynn are elitist snobs.  They actually, and with indignant pride, look down upon ... well, probably all of my friends (save Mandy) and most of the people I know, and especially my family.  These are people (the whole group of friends, including the women) with at least 1 (sometimes 3+) degrees either done or almost done, and plans to continue getting Master after Master.  Linus is, for all intents and purposes, a professional Academic.  And he looks down on anyone who isn't, or doesn't aspire to be, the same.  Linus and Flynn spent several minutes discussing how the Business College shouldn't even be allowed at University, since it's "merely vocational training" and laughed off anyone with an MBA as too dumb to tackle a "real" subject.  So they're not just snobs about people without degrees, but even about what subjects are worth studying to get a degree in.

There were many, many times during the course of the afternoon where -presumedly without knowing it- one of them would directly insult me, or one of my family members, personally and egregiously.  One's chosen profession, one's income level, one's attitude about success, even in some cases one's belief that they are capable of success, or the idea that one might react negatively to verbal and emotional abuse from professors rather than expecting it or taking it in stride - all of these were turned into ways to separate and raise themselves up. To "separate the wheat from the chaff," as they repeatedly put it.  If you aren't an Academic, if you aren't good at the politicking of Academia, if you don't aspire to be wealthy (which sounds a lot like greed to me, despite their rhetoric), or even if you aspire to attain wealth through business rather than academic acumen, you are to be looked down upon with scorn, joked about, made fun of, and outright insulted.  I guess they assumed that Mandy would hold the same views and couldn't have married someone outside their magic bubble of Academics and the Elite, so didn't know they were attacking and insulting me as a person, my path and choices in life, and my hopes, dreams and goals for the future.

There was a time, back when I was in High School and then just starting out at the Community College -which is to say, there was a time before I attended a University- when I talked about being a professional student.  When I started college I was poor enough that Pell Grants covered tuition and books easily, and when I still confused an interest in learning with something that might happen -and continue to happen at upper levels- in college/university. I don't remember it clearly now, but I had a plan laid out that I would recite for anyone who asked me what I was planning on doing or what I wanted to be 'when I grew up' that covered getting the gov't to pay me to go to school until I was overqualified to get a job & then go on full disability for being unemployable.  This is actually possible, if you set your mind to it.  You can then even continue to go to school, if you like, and the more degrees you have, the harder it is for you to get a job in the real world (since companies want to pay the least possible, and more degrees demand more salary).  Except then I got my first taste of Academia, and it was a sour one.  I gave them a second chance -two semesters at University- and when they said they wanted to kick me out, I didn't disagree at all.  I wasn't even interested in the process for getting back in.  Apparently, with a show of effort (and with brown nosing & other Academic politics & red tape) I could have gone back without even missing a single semester - this I learned later, when I did decide to go back.

The problem then is the same problem I have now, and it is that Academics live in their own little bubble, separate from reality, separate from the world the rest of us live in.  This is a problem with many facets.  With people like Mandy's University friends, there is the way they look down on everyone outside their little bubble, and everyone who tries to break into their secret garden and fails.  There's also the total disconnect between what they think is reality, and what's actually going on in the world outside their bubble.  A whole different set of rules applies, a largely independent set of expectations and beliefs about appropriate behaviour and human interaction exists, and crossing the skin of their bubble is difficult.  They make it as hard as possible to get in, for sure, and revel in defeat -people washing out- with a sick schadenfreude that they should be ashamed of.  But then, if anyone leaves their little bubble there's a worse shock, upon learning that everything they worked so hard at perfecting to get by in Academia is sh!t, and they're about to get f_cked, and f_cked hard, by the real world that their University training totally failed to alert them to.

Yes, I've mostly talked to people who 1) were never in Academia, 2) tried to join but washed out of Academia, and 3) transitioned from Academia to reality and now can see what they escaped - because Academics and I generally don't get along.  You can't explain to them what they're doing and saying is wrong, because as long as they never look outside of or leave Academia, it's so-very-right.  You can't tell them they've just insulted you for not being one of them, because then they turn on you personally (though usually they apologize to your face and make fun of you behind their backs, like the rest of "your kind"), and because they then tune out everything else you have to say.  The only valid response, short of a radical intervention and something akin to cultist deprogramming, is a move to silence.  Smile, nod, and minimize exposure.  Realise that they have a problem they can't see until/unless they escape it.  Pray for them, calmly recommend that they seek help, whatever you'd do for a cultist or addict, and if nothing else works, just avoid them.

Me, I'm going to go back home, three states away, and continue not talking to (or much thinking about) Mandy's University friends.  And if/when I go back to school (perhaps this Fall?), I've got a pretty effective attitude that I believe will get me through anything those Academic @ssholes can throw at me, because I don't give a sh!t about the piece of paper at the end, I want to go to "Art School" to learn techniques I may not otherwise have thought of on my own, and to learn enough about the politicking to be able to make a living in the "Art World".  Some professors will be good, they'll be interested in teaching, they'll have something useful to contribute, and other professors will be Academics.  And I'll deal with them well enough to succeed in their classes, if only so I can get to the next class and maybe learn something from someone who doesn't think I'm a piece of sh!t for not wanting to be an Academic.

bleh.  I'm going to bed.  Then tomorrow, we're moving on to Cheyenne to meet Mandy's actual family, and sometime next week I'll head home.