Watching NASA-TV is Research

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and I am listening to the kids racing up and down the block – frolicking is evident as merry squealing and giggling appears to accompany the running. The English bulldog, half deaf and half blind as he is, barks as they dare run through his gate and disharmonize his turf.

In the kitchen, Mom is making a giant apple pancake and in the bedroom, I sit back and watch NASA-TV on my big screen. Thankfully the budget crunch has not completely eliminated the streaming of some of NASA’s programming.

I’m watching the Antares rocket launch. Of course, under normal circumstances I’d watch the opening of a soda can if NASA was involved – I am a space agency groupie and have always been!

I am watching this launch though for research, though.

I may not be writing at the moment (distracted by regular life slapping me around). I can, however, still perform other activities to support my writing… The story for Love and the Android will require a thorough understanding of commercial payloads making their way to the ISS, where our protagonist lives.

Research!

I have drafted scenes for a couple of the ongoing projects, though none have been fleshed out yet. I’m trying to get through this moment as unscathed as possible (and, if not, take notes for later). The important thing here is that writing and servicing these stories is never too far from my mind. It’s the best I can do until life straightens itself out at my end.

I wonder if this will eventually turn into a celebration of Kubrick, a sort of Eyes Wide Shut meets 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Whatever the case, I like the idea of the story developing in the same way I may put together a stew: I know the elements that I want in it and I am tweaking the condiments and adjusting the quantities.

The question, I suppose, is how I’ll ultimately describe images that are already embedded in people’s minds. Then it occurs to me, not everyone is a NASA Junkie – so that describing launch images can become a challenge in itself.

Non-science geeks always complain that they find the long silent bits in 2001 “boring” and my goal would be to recreate those, in writing, but make it interesting (if not downright exciting). 

Veronica Mars Spells Progress

Last month, a Kickstarter project went up to fund Veronica Mars movie. There was plenty of eye-rolling and derision (“RLY? Who asked for this?” “Veronica Who?!”)

In five hours, fans had pledged $1 million (half of the projected budget). The project page just closed about half an hour ago from the time I write this and they’d collected almost $6 million from over 91,000 backers.

This ought to be quite an education to network executives (those willing to learn and those not living in a bubble). Yes, the show had a relatively small audience but that small audience can drop $5.7 million for a movie the studio would have never greenlit.

Kickstarter and Indiegogo have given power back to the content creators and fans, and this will revolutionize the way people consume their art and entertainment. It has already changed things, but big business has taken little notice…

The news of the Veronica Mars movie project will put a giant magnifying glass over this trend because of the amount of money raised.

Combined with the final take (box office, if released wide), DVD-sales and streaming distribution, and promotional sales this will likely become a profitable endeavor. Soon the studios will be used mainly for distribution deals, and if a streaming world that is not even needed for all projects.

This is putting ideas in my head and I am thinking of scripting short animated pieces to match the stories on Because She Was a Woman, for instance. It democratizes the delivery of art and entertainment by attracting the people sooner into the process. Everyone can become a patron and it is neither prostitution nor content creation by committee – there is no need for the creator to compromise her vision.

I keep seeing new media jobs going to entry level prospects because the old guard, not knowing what knowledge is needed, rely on the idea that kids can figure it out and they won’t have to pay them a king’s ransom for their service. I believe they also feel that they can train these young ’uns into doing business as usual – which completely misses the point.

All this does is delay progress by slowly adopting new technologies but adhering to marketing strategies that have yet to catch up and in doing so adding poorly scripted analyses and showing no to little profit in adopting new ways. It’s a vicious cycle!

Some book projects have been created this way and I predict that authors will soon take over auxiliary projects by repurposing their own writing (short films, music, graphic novels, based on their writings).

Will we all command a $5.7 million payday to create our content? Probably not, but it frees us to dream and propose the dream to others who may partake in sharing that dream. It evens the odds for the truly talented. This is a very good thing indeed, don’t you think?

Por Ser Mujer: en español

I’m slow on the intake, as it were. Creatively speaking, I seem to be hovering over ideas but not executing. I wouldn’t call this a period of writer’s block so much as a break.

Stress and real life issues get in the way, and this is a real test but not one I’m willing to take sitting down.

Instead of waiting for it to go away (it will not), the next project simply suggested itself. How Nadine and Libby Escaped Destiny was born during March Madness, and from it came its Big Sister: Because She Was a Woman.

If I can’t take a stand to finish ongoing projects, then I can do the next best thing (which I intended to do anyway): translate BSWaW into Spanish.

The Spanish version will differ only in that the last story (The Last “It” Couple) may not make the final product and might be replaced with a story I rejected for the original book – not because its quality was subpar but because it was too painful to read and reread.

Of course, this translation will be different from the other two because even when I was translating dreams or fictionalized accounts of life, the words conveyed facts; whereas this tome, tentatively tiled Por Ser Mujer will be all fiction. I can allow some poetic license and even change a few details to suit the translation.

Is this cheating? It might be, but then the audience for the Spanish versions is likely to be different to those who read the English versions.

It gives me something to do (and don’t think this is a simple thing, you are likely to agonize over words in as much the same way as when you are creating the work). This is an act of recreation and, yet, it is also a transformation. You have to strike a delicate balance so that you don’t effect change so striking that you end up with a whole new story. Also, you do not want to make changes that will affect the characters and their motivations.

Ridiculously enough, in some instances it feels perfectly okay to change the characters’ names and give them Spanish names, but in other cases it seems like absolute sacrilege: it’s all in the balance.

Ultimately, it might take a few months to release Por Ser Mujer—if for no other reason than making sure it doesn’t read too choppily in translation. But life, in all its tribulations, will not prevent me from getting it done. Life may put hurdles in my way, but I dictate how the race goes.

Any comments on the two covers?

Marketing Images

My mind has been occupied with real life concerns. The writing has suffered. I am not hopelessly blocked, but the output has been more akin to a trickle than a deluge of words.

The consolation comes in the form of tiny royalty returns that remind me that this dream is possible because some readers find the idea of reading my work fun, intriguing, pleasant, or at least worth the money and time.

It’s hard to focus when things are not going your way, though there is the whole struggling artist mystique… Of course, a bohemian existence sounds very romantic on paper as long as you poetically disguise that it is not much more than trying to decide which bill doesn’t get paid this month while wishing you could afford better booze to get through it.

If I can’t write to close out stories and put more books out to catalogue, at least I need to concentrate a bit of effort on marketing and the goal is to have at least one or two images for each title before week’s end.

I started the ball rolling with a poster for Justified that seems tailor-made for a Twitter world. I'm not entirely sure that they are all equally good or that they all convey the same level of enthusiasm or "talent" -- but if any of these speak more to you than others, please let me know. 

At any rate, these are the flyers I drafted today. Whattathink?

Program Notes

A few program notes, as it were. The back catalogue/online portal has changed URL to http://www.amapolapress.com. An international committee of lovely investors gave me a hand in purchasing the domain name and giving a cohesive persona to my self-publishing endeavor.

Writing on May You Grow Old and Fat has halted for the time being, as I try to decide the fate of a few characters – each alternative moves the story forward differently. Each ending, for its part, proposes distinctly different morals to the story.

No writing has begun on the new projects suggested earlier, although a placeholder cover for Love and the Android was uploaded to the Hopper page at the portal. The catalogue description reads: “A study in loneliness and sexuality, a compendium on the civil rights of artificial intelligence, and life in space… [It] will explore the ethics and consequences of using artificial intelligence as surrogates in a not-so-distant future.”

My favorite discussion of this included a comment from a friend whom is concerned the image speaks more of horror than sci-fi (in his opinion). My reply was that the only difference between romance and horror was "the tone of the screams involved." If I can maintain that level of humor as I write it, there is hope for this project!

Research for that is ongoing and right now I know of two main characters and the android. I have not done character studies yet, but I have very specific archetypes in mind. It is imperative that these characters stand on their own as three-dimensional people, if flawed, because otherwise the story is useless.

The bigger challenge, I think, will be trying to depict the loneliness of living in space without making it boring—and without making it sound like a 2001 rip-off, though any comparison to Arthur C. Clarke would be a cause for joy.

I’m also wondering if the project will benefit from a short story treatment rather than a narrative that has a linear thread from beginning, middle, and end. I haven’t decided this and it can wait…

  

For those of you who have been with me for some time, you realize that I detest February with a passion – and this year it promises to be crueler than usual – so instead of new projects, I will begin transcribing the six or seven chapters I wrote longhand for Poetic Justice. There remain at least three more chapters and assorted details of cultural relativism to sprinkle across the pages, but it will bring me closer to the conclusion.

Real Life concerns will probably derail any plans I make, so instead I make notes until I can peacefully devote life and love to it.

Fun Things to Come

Happy New Year from the Big Apple!

I’ve allowed several distractions to keep me from writing and the business of being a writer. To be fair, some distractions can be defined as Real Life Concerns and should not be ignored – though they tend to harsh my writer’s mellow…

Then again, one of my superpowers is the ability to give up vices without a second thought. I gave up recreational fun substances, alcohol, strange men, and even smoking without any bellyaching. The time came to put those things aside, and that was that!

Just as well, I decided it was time to stop playing around – and it is granted that some of those concerns will have to be addressed but without interfering with my writing. I will have none of that.

To that end, I finished a chapter of the NaNoWriMo novel and began a new chapter that brings the story closer to a climax.

Recently I’ve become curious about robot rights and sexuality and it may result in a novella, though I am not entirely sure where that is going just yet. I know there is a woman manning a space station and I am not yet sure whether it will be a study in loneliness, a study in sexuality, or a compendium on the civil rights of artificial intelligence… It ain’t gonna be 50 Shades of I, Robot!

There are still two other titles that need to be released: a crime novella set in a speculative political reality and one of the books in the steampunk series that introduces the alternate universe.

There is real life drama and humiliation, misery and frailty to be observed in the next few weeks that will surely become part of the journals that will soon make their way to another collection of stories. I may not be looking forward to the experience on a personal level but appreciate the opportunity for new material and hands-on research. (Things are about to get very real at my end, but as long as I can grab on to a silver lining, I know I will survive.)

While I am very happy to get back to work, I also realize that I need to sit down and work out a plan for the year – including a marketing plan (which I’ve been neglecting lately, despite growing sales in India, Brazil and Mexico).

I am thinking that I ought to do another short story collection, a sister companion to Because She Was a Woman. The first collection revolved around women and I was wondering if the second ought to revolve around something like a house, a locale, apiece of music, a dish…

What do you guys think?

Birthday Lesson

The last coupe of weeks I have been distracted on a personal project: a virtual birthday bash. The plan was to try to sustain a week-long celebration. I was not exactly sure how this would work, but it sounded like an interesting experiment.

You all know how I love to experiment! There was a lesson to be learned here…

Others have done this and I suppose if I look, there probably is data being collected on such things. But I wanted to document some of the experience and adapt the parameters of it to a book launch.

When Google Plus first appeared in the ether, I said that hangouts had a great potential for book launches. I admit that I did not go ahead with the planned virtual launch of One Night with B.B. because I panicked: What if I throw a hangout and nobody comes? What if they hate the story? What if nobody wants to buy your silly little e-book?

Tortured by my own doubts, I denied myself the experience.

Granted, the virtual birthday bash lasted well over a week and it was such a smashing success, we kept the group (it is private) and continued the conversations. A book launch is likely to last a very limited period of time. But I think I have learned a few things…

Here are the details that I wish to translate to a book-related event. The group was international, comprising three continents. It was balanced along gender lines. Involved were three distinct generations.

Obviously the majority had two people in common, the minority at last one of the two birthday girls. Some of them were familiar with my work but not all, but that was hardly important because it was not a publishing event.

There were no rules as such, but we did define what the virtual gathering should look like.

Music: Parties should have music! Dancing music, make out music... Bring us a good song!

Party Games: What's a birthday party without a game or two? Run your own trivia threads, if you'd like. I will give away a few books as prizes.

Food: Of course, you can link up some good food porn. And drinks! I even got you started in the cocktail department.

Gifts: No purchase necessary! But you can bring all those wonderfully weird, conversation pieces you haven't shared on your wall because . . . well, just because. If you get stuck, K and L enjoy looking at sexy boots neither can afford.

Stories: We like words! Stories, poems, songs, jokes. You got some? Share!

Video: Seen something interesting or funny and want to share or just discuss? Throw it in the mix. Especially if there's cute kittens in it!

The only thing that did not go as planned were the games and we did not need them as such (they were referenced). The conversations pretty much extended 24 hours as the group spanned several time zones.

What transpired was an exchange of ideas, philosophies, jokes, stories and ephemera that defined each of us, the group, cliques within it, the times in a much larger sense and the event itself.

I had a fantastic time and was left with ideas for more writing projects; a deeper bond with some and a deeper appreciation of the whole; a new hangout place simply called The Lounge; and a playlist of over 200 videos and 18 hours of sheer entertainment (which you are free to peruse and amuse, explore and use as a muse).

So it was an epic birthday, but also it expanded my idea of how to present my work and market it online. Plus I got to explain kinky boots. Like other defining experiences in life, it’s always best to try them out with friends you trust before taking the plunge…

I am ready to do this! And I am already working out the details in my head for a fantastic virtual book party (and I'm dying to try out the technology to include a virtual signing as well). O brave new world!