Sky's Book News & Other Things

The Truth About Writing

2010-04-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

WEbook? How about WEcrook?

2010-02-08T00:10:00.000-08:00

Status: Busy with stuff.

Watching: Fan-Based Collective Time Travel.

Listening To: Nothing at the moment.

Reading: Midori Days manga.

TOPIC: ANOTHER SCAM IN PROGRESS.

I joined another social networking site for writers--thinking it would be cool to ham it up with other writers and see what's going on.

That was three days ago.

What I discovered was a slick scam designed to steal the rights of every author connected with Webook and give very little in return.

As a precaution, I removed all of my outlined projects and have posted warnings on every social networking site there is--about Webook's costly right stealings; which are more complicated and complex.

But let's just say that if you do go through Webook, you won't be able to reclaim your rights to your work or on anything else you submit.

In fact...? They make it so that you no longer have any right to what you've spent years working on; once you become connected to their website.

So pay close attention to what Webook is throwing at you. You may end up regretting it later--if you're not careful and wary.

First, they claim that--for $5--you can get a literary agent after going through 4 rounds of voting.

But what they don't tell you is that there is absolutely zero guarantee that your book will be picked up!

And all the while, you'll be wasting more money trying to "get in" the front door of a literary agent--rather than just spending a small amount of money sending out query letters.

(This way...at least you'll get a generic rejection letter--instead of wasting funds doing it this way.)

Oddly enough, no writer magazine, book, or online site has ever mentioned Webook as being a "realiable", "trusting", and "auspacious" site that GUARANTEES absolute publication or literary representation.

Believe me...I've checked. I spent a few hours going through every site that I could think of, to pull any information on Webook.

And one site--Wikipedia--offered a disturbing premise on what Webook really is: "An online version of American Idol."

Much like "Operation Teen Author" (which offers teens the chance to become nationally best-selling authors for the low, low, price of $2495.00 (that is no typo by the way--they do charge that much!), Webook is nothing more than a vanity-press operation which is obscured in a media cloak of deception.

How do I know this?

One article in The Writer (March 2010 issue), tells writers that, "there is no magic pill to getting published."

And that goes for websites as well.

There is no 'magic pill' website that will do the same.

Bottom line?

Webook is a social networking site that's stamped with the words "SUCKER" and "VANITY PRESS on it.

It won't get you any closer to becoming published, or have tea and cookies with a high-profile agent.

In fact, it will ruin you on so many levels than it is designed to help.

So if you want to save yourself, and your works...?

AVOID WEBOOK!

WARN EVERYONE YOU KNOW ABOUT IT AND STAY AWAY!!!

Schuyler Thorpe

PS: After its launch 3 years ago, Webook declared last month (January 2010) that they had their first winning author; a sucker whose book isn't even being published by Simon and Schuster; a top-level publishing company located in good ol' New York.

Normally, such a valued company would announce a new acquisition, but after some digging, I discovered that the author and the book hasn't even been picked up yet and ready to become published!

So Scam #2 was successful after all. And one person's dream, one person's book, will never see the light of day.

I tried to contact the author and tell him the truth, but he wouldn't listen to me.

He's still convinced that he's getting published!

THE SLUMP OF 2009

2009-12-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

Status: Just milling about.

Watching: Smallville, Season 6.

Listening to: Icon of Coil, VNV Nation, Infected Mushroom.

Reading: Star Trek: To Rein in Hell.

TOPIC: ONE CRAZY YEAR.

Some things change, yet some things still remain the same.

Reflecting on this past year, it was a pretty crazy one: Living with my in-laws for 5 months, getting our own place, and finally hitting a wall with my writing that has left a lot of unanswered questions, along with many unfinished journeys.

I haven't written much since September-October with my Airwolf novel and I'm still in a meloncholy state of mind: Where I want to write, but I'm not motivated enough to even start.

I've been trying to go over why I can't and my mind keeps drawing a blank. I'm beginning to wonder if being homeless againt for the second time in 15 years had destroyed some or all of my confidence in my abilities as a writer.

If being severely stressed out and severely depressed from those 8 months of being homeless--and at the mercies of both my wife's ex-friend and my in-laws--had something to do with the fact that I cannot produce a large amount of material for my writing.

I do know that it can be changed. I can feel it. At the edge of my perceptions, I can sense something's about to break free within me.

My writing obsession will eventually overwhelm me and nothing will be able to stop me from doing what I love most: Which is writing.

But I think it's going to take a little more time. But by then, I should be in full Writer Mode and putting away the pages like I always did these last 8 years. :0)

Sky

LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST STEPHANIE MEYERS.

2009-08-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

Status: Writing on a variety of book projects.

Watching: James Bond movies from my PS2.

Listening to: Whatever's burned to my PC.

Reading: CHEEKY ANGEL manga.

TOPIC: PLAGIARISM ABOUNDS...

Like JK Rowling, Stephanie Meyers was recently handed a lawsuit--charging her with plagiarizing one of her books; from another unauthorized source.

Of course, Meyers denies that she plagiarized "anything" from her books, but one has to wonder why people like her can get so defensive about it--if they didn't do it in the first place?

Like Bush's supporters have famously said over the years: "If you're not worried, what do you have to hide?"

Plagiarism is becoming something of a growing epidemic within the publishing world these days--with more and more examples popping up over the past five years. (Or more.)

With the advent of the internet, it has become more and more easy to simply "lift" material (copyrighted or otherwise) from people's personal websites, or other different websites and claim it as your own--once the finished project is completed.

Stephanie Meyers and JK Rowling are most likely guilty of such crimes--which makes their claims of innocence all that more suspect.

No one in their right mind would think that either just didn't happen to dream up their book series independently and without any such public "influence".

If they did--as they claim--it's a load of crap. There are a lot of internal and external influences which makes coming up with something original all that much harder.

People these days have either fallen off of or gotten onto the band wagon--for that one, small, trip towards fame, fortune, and glory.

They constantly want to emulate their favorite authors, movie stars, and the like--and don't have to put in a whole lot of work doing it.

Writing a novel is becoming all that more challenging to do--because it is all too easy to fall prey to cheating and stealing your way towards the end of any given book project.

But denying it just casts a cloud over you--the author--and makes it all that more difficult to be seen as both credible and original.

Sky

***

"Twilight" author accused of plagiarism

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A writer plans to sue "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer, accusing her of plagiarism by lifting passages from an obscure book she wrote called "The Nocturne" and using them in vampire romance "Breaking Dawn," an attorney said on Tuesday.

J. Craig Williams, who represents "The Nocturne" author Jordan Scott, told Reuters by phone that the passages in question involve few word-for-word similarities but that the two books have similar plot and character points.

Meyer's publisher, Hachette Book Group, called the accusation meritless, saying "The Twilight Saga" is entirely Meyer's creation and that she knew nothing of "The Nocturne."

"Breaking Dawn," which came out in 2008, is the fourth book in the series of novels about a teenager, Bella Swan, caught in a forbidden romance with vampire Edward Cullen.

The "Twilight" books, which the publisher says have sold 70 million copies worldwide, are the basis for a movie series from Summit Entertainment. The first film, "Twilight," has earned more than $380 million at worldwide box offices, and the second, "New Moon," hits theaters in November.

In "Breaking Dawn," Bella marries the blood-sucking Cullen and the book follows Bella through a difficult pregnancy and her new life as a vampire.

In a cease-and-desist letter Williams sent to Hachette Book Group, he provided comparisons from the two books of a wedding, a sex-on-the-beach episode and a passage where a human-turned-vampire describes the wrenching change.

As another instance of similarities, Williams pointed out that characters in both books call their wives "love."

Hachette Book Group said in a statement that Meyer's books "have been a phenomenal sensation" and that "it shouldn't be surprising to hear that other people may seek to ride the coattails of such success."

Williams said Scott plans to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meyer this week or next in U.S. federal court.

"I think the fans have to read both books and make up their own mind, like a judge is going to have to," Williams said.

He said Scott does not plan to seek monetary damages.

Scott made chapters from "The Nocturne" available online as she was working on the vampire book, which she wrote in her teenage years and released in book form in 2006, Williams said. He said he did not know how many copies the book sold.

FITS AND STARTS

2009-04-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Status: Living with the in-laws. (Week 13)

Watching: Stargate Continuum.

Listening to: Nothing.

Reading: Books, books, and more books!

TOPIC: SOMEWHERE...A CHARACTER IS SCREAMING AT ME.

I dunno.

For the past couple of months, I've been trying to write a novel--Starchild Crossfire--and not getting anywhere with it as a result.

I strongly suspect that my living situation is at the core of my writing difficulties, but I am also finding that I miss writing on our PC.

All of my books are still stored there and I desperately want to continue writing, but I'm finding that I cannot.

The past several months has been a bit of test of both wills and chaos--making me wish that I was somewhere's else entirely.

But that hasn't been so and I've been forced to make do.

I have something like 60 to 70 pages completed, but nothing seems to be working as I originally thought--forcing me to start over a number of times already.

I have a strong suspicion that I'll continue making mistakes and false starts with the book until we get into our new apartment. (Least, that's the plan.)

But what I want is a good beginning for the novel. That's all I'm concerned about at the moment.

Schuyler Thorpe

A VERY IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE!

2009-03-31T17:17:00.001-07:00

Status: Living with the in-laws. (Week 10)

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: Recorded Music.

Reading: A bunch of mangas.

TOPIC: RABID FAN BASES

While I still have the strength and energy to type this out (sick once again--due to stress and a lot of other factors in my life), I wanted to touch base on the rabid fan issue.
Yes...

The RABID FAN.

Recently classified by scientists as an offshoot of the Homo Sapien race of mammals--rabid fans are an eclectic group of harbingers whom have this little nifty power to make their cousin species' sick with aggravation and deep-seeded annoyance

Why?

Because rabid fans can.

Their unique power structure stems from their obssessed love for any particular book or fad which has consumed their sad little lives--which ends being very badly for them.

They cannot discern reality from fantasy--having hooked onto the idea that their target in question will somehow respond and give back what was stolen from them in the first place:

Their lives.

How can you spot a rabid fan a mile away--or anyone else showing symptoms of unnormalcy?

A rabid fan's behavior is a dead giveaway. If they are acting completely out of character or seem to be fixated on something beu-faux specific...?

Steer clear of them and their little armies of gnawing teeth and explosive anger.

You don't want to get them angry. Not one iota.

They seem to believe that whatever made them rabid in the first place, might reciproctate and give them their undivided blessings in retrospect.

By saying, "Thank You!"--for hanging on and making the target's life all that less enriching and more self-important.

Rabid fans can be found dwelling in special groups, borrows, or tidy little holes with chains of flowers and other fauna designed to enhance their little abode--while showcasing a lot of their choice items which is the soul reason why they are rabid in the first place.

Rabid fans are easily spotted by their sharp claws, gnawing teeth, beady little eyes, and choice apparel reflecting why they are so rabid in the first place.

It can be a phrase, a word. a singular title, or even a picture of their dwelling fixation and undying love.

To say something bad about the rabid fans' target of affection (or love) is to invite disaster.

In such dreaded scenarios, the offender is usually found with their arms and legs ripped off at the seams, their impersonables torn completely away from their bodies and their clothes left tattered and in shreds.

In some documented cases, rabid fans have been known to take a trophy part of their targeted aggression and have it on display for the whole entire world to see.

Why?

Rabid fans don't like their god or goddess taken down a peg or beaten into a nice and juicy pulp.

So they have been known to congregate into tightly woven circles; throwing up all kinds of deflector-shield technologies in order to preserve or protect The One from his or her untimely critics or flame-bots.

Rabid fans often have been reported to not have much of a social life and one has to wonder if personal hygiene or grooming is ever required.

So far...

Scientists the world over have yet to confirm or document the inner workings of a rabid fan--only suffice to say that without some on-hand experience in dealing with them...?

All that is written here is pure speculation and shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt--for fear that angering these undomesticated rabid fans will somehow trigger and emotionally aggressive response.

So, the next time you run into a rabid fan or their base, please, please, please...!--give them a wide berth and go about your own lives.

If you ever value them.

End documentary.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

2009-03-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Status: Living with the in-laws. (Week 8)

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: Absolute silence.

Reading: A bunch of mangas.

TOPIC: STUPID THINGS WRITERS DO

Spend some time on Yahoo! Answers (Specifically the Books and Authors section) and you'll see a rather disturbing pattern currently on display: Wannabe writers asking about whether or not their vampires (or vampiress goddesses) are good enough.

Or if the whole book will past muster.

Or asking for ideas on what to do next with their vampires, or if their idea is good enough in the first place.

Judging by the current atmosphere of Twilight fanatics, one doesn't have to be a super genius to figure out where all of this monotony came from in the first place.

Yes...

We can blame Stephanie Meyers for it.

For inciting a riot amongst teenage girls desparate to emulate her in every way and going to great lengths to copy what has been a Greek tragedy in its own right.

By destroying the vampire lore in the process.

Meyers has made a mockery of the legends and stories behind the supernatural icon which spawed Bram Stokers Dracula in 1897 by giving us two completely unbelievable characters that did little to reinforce the power and majesty of the vampirac lore.

All Edwards wants to do is fit in and what Bella has is an insecurity complex worse than a nerd in a class room full of hot teenage girls.

But the love aspect just destroys what it means to have a respectable vampire novel on your hands.

Meyers failed to reinforce the stories and legends behind her vampire characters themselves as she went with her book--instead...she successfully made it a campy experience that makes most veteran writers want to dip their heads into an acid bath--just to get rid of the stinging embarrassment of having to be around her later on!

Her rabid girl fans will--undoubtedly--defend her and her works until the end of time, but what she's done won't take away the stigma of having created a sappy love affair on par with the 90s TV serial of Beauty and the Beast.

But what irks me, is now I'm seeing cloned books popping up with the same Twilight-like plots which emulate the same sappiness which has plagued much of Meyer's early vampire works.

And the questions that are being asked is in the same generalization as: "Will this sweet and sappy vampire book honor the same dip shit writing that my mentor-in-training (a.k.a: Stephanie Meyers) put out not too long ago?"

In other words, will their cloned books fly in the same manner of the original?

Most likely not.

It's fun to write about vampires and twisting a little of the lore around--to come up with something new.

But completely distorting the whole concept so that it can be turned into one big, teenage love affair (along with poorly constructed dialogue and equally weak characters)...?

Ann Rice wouldn't dare touch it.

What Stephanie Meyers has forgotten and what her fans seem to be amiss on, is that when writing in a particular genre, you have to take particular care in not upsetting the status quo.

The balance which is based stories, legends, and myths of a particular paranormal icon.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WANTING TO SELF-PUBLISH

2009-03-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

Status: Living with the in-laws. (Help! SOS!)

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: The "f"-Word. (Cooking show.)

Reading: The Death Star. Page 327.

TOPIC: SELF-PUBLISHING AND WHAT IT MEANS

Self-publishing is nothing new. According to Writer's Digest, it's been around since the days of John Milton.

Defenders of self-publishing routinely point to such historic works like Aeropagitica as a celebration of the practice.

Businesses that offer such services can be traced back to newspaper ads from the 1930s--where they suggested that 'chapbooks' filled with poems would make excellent gifts or close friends and family members, but also warned against the idea that this route would lead immediately to fame and riches.

Because they are right.

Self-publishing is a gamble which shouldn't be taken lightly.

Even though print-on-demand (POD) and digital technologies have greatly improved the quality and layouts of self-published books since the 1990s--self-publishing still remains a "last resort" for those of us whom have failed to capture the attention and imagination of the mainstream publishing network.

But if you are considering self-publishing, then consider the following statistics:

Very few self-published writers actually make enough money off their writing these days to sustain themselves.
The average books sold in the United States comes to about 500 copies.

(So if you really wanted to make it--you'd have to sell ten times that amount or even fifty times that number--if you ever hope to go over the top.)

The reported number of on-demand and short-run books in 2007 was 134,773; making the total number for that year (projected U.S. output) to be around 411,422.
Fewer than 20,000 new books published make it into the chain stores.

(Which is why it is so important to shop around for alternative routes to pitch your books. Remember: Chain-stores--like Borders--cherry-pick what they think will sell and what might be a passing curio. If you ever looked at a chainstore's shelves--you'll notice that there isn't much space to be had for new books. And there's a lot of 'piling' to be had--or stacked books; one top of the other.)

Sales by smaller publishers and self-publishing outlets reached an impressive $14.2 billion dollars in 2005. (The mainstream's bottom line for the same year--total--was about $26 billion dollars.)
Authorhouse published nearly 1 out of every 20 U.S. titles in 2008.

So what does it mean to be self-published?

It means that you alone take control of every aspect of the development of your book: From content all the way down to marketing and publicity.

It has nothing to do with the vanity-press stigma--which so many critics of self-publishing and their supporters try and lump together as being one and the same.

Because it isn't.

Self-publishing is where you take control, vanity-press is where you pay someone else to do all the work and take most of your book rights away.

But if you do consider this route, you have to realize that no one else is going to step in and save your bacon.

You alone are the pitchman, salesman, and expert on what you've written and self-published.

If you want to make money, then you're going to have to stop making excuses and start getting your rear in gear.

But also be prepared for failure. So many self-published authors I know are obsessed with perfection, they don't consider failing while on the job to be a clear cut option.

I'm choosing self-publishing under my own imprint because I don't want to have to wait for the rest of my life for agents and publishers to decide if I'm good for them.

I already know I am. Now.

I'm choosing self-publishing because the odds of getting traditionally published is virtually impossible.

Why waste my life away beating my head against a brick wall?

We all know that agents reject 99% of all submitted query letters. We all know that 80-85% of all publishers require agent representation before being picked up. (And there is no guarantee that this will happen either. Keep in mind: Publishing mainstream depends on how the economy is doing and how much money consumers are spending. But since the economy is in the toilet and the mainstream is currently in a restructuring mode to survive this deepening recession...? Your chances of getting 'tagged' is not going to even show up on their To Do list.)

Self-publishing is my last resort. I've spent years doing the agent-train and getting absolutely nowhere with their generic response letters, and having been represented by 2 agencies in the past.

I'm quite capable of doing all the hard work myself and I can pitch my books like the best of them.

But I do it in my own way. I don't follow any of the concurrent models in use today; to pitch my works in under 90 seconds flat.

The other thing about self-publishing is that you have to invest your time, money, and effort into what you want to do with your unfinished book.

Why did I highlight the money word?

Because nothing is for free anymore. You want to take the cheap route--with half-assed cover art, cheesy editing, and poor writing (because you didn't want to spend the money necessary; when it could've made the difference?)--?

Be my guest.

If you want to take the self-publishing route with any hopes of being picked up sometime before you hit the Big 7-0--then you had better start writing like you mean it!

You had better start thinking like a bonifide professional and start spending the time, money, and effort to make sure that your books are in the best shape possible!

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE TRADITTIONALLY-PUBLISHED--NOW--SO WHY WORRY ABOUT WHAT MONEY IS COMING IN OR GOING OUT?!?

Think about what your career--as a successful writer--is going to be about...and start making every attempt to reach those set goals!

Money is just a tool for us to use--not to hoard or covet like it's the best Danish Blue cheese around. (Which is pretty good I might add. Expensive wedges of heaven--but well worth the pocket change.)

If you want to be published--later--by a traditional publisher, then start early.

Get yourself a professional editor and have him or her do the work. Because paying them what they are worth, will make all the difference in the world--and your odds of getting picked up later a bit better than they would be if you queried an agent with a book that looks like a copy-cat edition of Atlanta Nights.

Having your friends or family members doing it is just asking for the Grim Reaper to come and take a swipe at you before you're actually ready to kick the bucket.

They aren't professionals and wouldn't know jack about editing, grammar, or even proof-reading. (Especially true--since 36 million Americans (or 1 in 7) can't read past the 5th grade reading level.)

Cover art is the #1 make-or-break, deal-shaker that can (and will) affect your overall book sales.

Picking a cheesy template cover from the 1990s or using off-the-shelf, first-generation (3D) computer software--to grace your book with--isn't going to impress your target audience any.

Get a professional cover artist to do the work. On average, some of the going rates are between $500 and $1000 a pop. (Or more.)

You can gripe all you want, haggle over price, but if you are really serious, investing any amount of money into your books will have nice payoffs for the future.

The question remains: Are you willing to go the distance? Well? Are you?

Distribution is key to your success as a self-published author.
If you can find a good distributor, then your odds of reaching a much larger audience is better than those self-published authors whom are struggling to gain a bigger foothold in the money game.
Lastly, the one thing that self-published authors do the most (and make a habitual mistake doing) is querying agents soon after they get self-published.
Why is this such a bad idea?
Well...duh!
Agents thrive on money. But in their Rules of Acquisition operates on the principle of more. So much more dinero, that it often boggles the mind.
If you're self-published and you are thinking about going the traditional route, then you have to show these same agents that you are worth every penny pitched.
And by doing that, you're going to have to have some pretty impressive sales figures to get any agent's attention.
Say, 5K self-published books sold to start?
Which means...
You're going to have to buckle down and start making yourself known.
Much like myself. I've spent the last 7 years pitching my books, WIPs, and whatnot to my prospective audience. I've done it in such a way that I am literally attracting new readers to my blogs every day.
And it's not in the tens of thousands which some boastful writers claim, but in the the upper hundreds to the low 1000s each month.
I'm happy with that. I can live with the knowledge that my work and life experiences are reaching these people and then watching as those numbers increase over time.
Because--in order to be successful--you have to offer something that people will read time and again.
That's how you gain recognition and exposure these days.

That's how you become successful.

NEW ADDRESS. (1 DAY LEFT.)

2008-09-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

Status: Still packing and moving things. Nearly complete.

Watching: News.

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 716.

TOPIC: NEW ADDRESS.

After today, I won't be here accessing the net or writing.

I can't say when I'll return.

But feel free to write me or my wife! :0)

New address:

Schuyler and April Thorpe

PO Box 1634
Everett, WA 98206

Sky

ZOMBIE NATION MEETS TWILIGHT. (4 DAYS LEFT.)

2008-09-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

Status: Still packing and moving things. Nearly complete.

Watching: News.

Listening to: "Dead Silicon"-by PTI; "Brave New World"-by Covenant

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 716.

TOPIC: FORKS ARTICLE ON 'TWILIGHT'

Just so everyone knows--the use of the town of Forks, Washington for the Twilight-series, has nothing to do with the setting for Zombie Nation: Outbreak Zero.

It's just a coincidence that I happen to use the setting for the initial choice place for the book. When I started the book last year, I just wanted something different for a book. And so I looked to my own state for inspiration--since I am a resident of Washington.

I thought Forks would suffice and have Emily commute back and forth to her defense arts classes in Port Angeles.

But by the looks of things...Port Angeles will most likely be where all the action will be taking place--before and after the virus sweeps the world and turns most everyone into flesh-eating zombies of otherworldly origins. :0)

Emily Rose Jordan won't be returning to Forks until many years after the world calms down to some degree. (But it won't mean she's out of the woods just yet.)

Anyways...

Here's the article

***

Visitors flock to timber town for Twilight's magic

FORKS, Wash. - Pounding rain and heavy mist are constant in this timber town where logging's decline left a graveyard of rusting timber mills and unemployment. Businesses shut down. Parts of the local high school were condemned. Families started to drift away.

Until an unlikely cast of vampires breathed new life into the town.

"I fell in love with it," says 18-year-old Samantha Cogar, who dragged her grandparents on a 2,500 mile roadtrip to Forks from Louisville, Ky., earlier this summer. "I can't wait to go back."

Cogar is one of thousands of visitors who have flocked to Forks in response to "Twilight," the hottest series to hit shelves since "Harry Potter." Set in Forks, on the gritty edge of the Olympic Mountain Range, the books have captured the hearts of readers around the world.

In a town framed by towering Douglas fir, hemlock and spruce and the occasional western red cedar, where rough, blue collar edges are tangible, the unexpected attention seems to be a second chance for the economy. Inspired by a world of make-believe, "Twilight" fans are bringing the town back to life.

Four years ago, Author Stephenie Meyer introduced the world to Bella Swan, a 17-year-old who moves to Forks and is torn between the love of classmate Edward Cullen and best friend Jacob Black. But before long, she realizes something isn't right: Edward is a vampire and Jacob, a werewolf.

Readers were hooked, and three more "Twilight" books followed. "Breaking Dawn," the fourth and final book of her "Twilight" series, came out in July and has remained at the top of best seller lists ever since. Teens throughout the country celebrated the release of the book by dressing up as characters from the series for midnight parties at bookstores — much the way "Harry Potter" books are launched.

As the pages kept coming, the series' cultlike following increased. Before long, fans started showing up in Forks, looking to see if magic would spark when imagination collided with reality. What they found was a two-stoplight town where more than a foot of rain falls each month. A place where success is measured in sweat and four-wheel drive.

But Forks was quick to embrace the frenzied fans.

Forks' "Twilight"-inspired turn has been nothing short of magical, Marcia Bingham, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, says.

"We've probably had more than 100 people a day," says Bingham, who has eagerly watched as van after van of giddy readers — mostly female — pull up in front of the town's visitors center.

For many fans, the line where reality ends and imagination begins is starting to blur, says Michael Gurling, who caught inspiration from the tourism boom and started his own Twilight Tours.

After enlisting a few locals, he asked for help in picking out houses that could serve as stand-ins for the book's famous Forks' stops: Bella and Edward's houses, a field where vampires play baseball. Other locations, such as the police station, where Bella's father works, and the hospital, where Edward's father is a doctor, play their own parts. They chipped in, providing cruisers near which fans may take pictures and reserving a spot for "Dr. Cullen" in the parking lot.

"The most popular spot is probably the beach, in LaPush, where Bella finds out the truth about Edward," says Gurling.

On a recent Friday, Gurling's van headed out of the visitor's center parking lot — packed, as it is most every weekend, with teenage girls. Outside the stand-in for Edward's house, a sign on the door says "Cullens" are volunteering a blood drive.

"It's not quite how I thought it would be," says Yena Hu, a University of Washington sophomore who made the four-hour trek from Seattle to visit. "They're always talking about all the windows — and in the book, the house is on the water."

But it's surprising how much Meyer did get right, considering she'd never been to Forks when she wrote the first book. A quick Internet search revealed Forks was one of the rainiest places in the world, and from her home in Arizona, the stay-at-home mom began rewriting history.

While locals are accepting of their newfound fame, they're all too aware of the mania that is continuing to grow.

Almost everyone has a "Twilight" story: the teen who dropped his library card, only to discover Twilighters had found it and kept it; the cheerleader who has out-of-town mothers stop her on the street offering cash for her uniform; the Quileute native, who heads to LaPush to chop wood and sees giddy teenagers snatching up driftwood as souvenirs.

Jessica Hartman, an 18-year-old who works at the town's pharmacy says "Twilight" has more than doubled profits for the corner store.

Flipping through a guest book for Twilighters, the recent Forks High School grad smiles as she touches signatures from around the globe — Europe, Asia, South America. They're all here, recorded in the tattered pages that spell out the town's fame.

Spurred by the boost in tourism and influx of money, are businesses eagerly trying to cash in on the craze.

Wander down the town's main drag and you'll see "We Love Edward and Bella" signs in store windows and a Forks' Speedway sign welcoming "Vampires and Racers."

Restaurants have started offering Twilight-themed options: Subway's "Twilight Special" which oozes marinara and the ever popular Bella Burger at local hangout Sully's Drive-in, which comes with special sauce and pineapple.

Stacks of Twilight T-shirts sit behind almost every counter in town.

At Sully's, 32-year-old Eleanor Currit waves a pair of plastic vampire teeth in the air — a standard side for any customer who orders the Bella burger.

"When I go back to my book club, I'm definitely going to have bragging rights," she says. "The women in my group are honestly crazy about these books."

Currit, a stay-at-home-mom with a master's degree in English, says being in Forks is like opening a page of the book and jumping in.

"This town just has a pretty primal way about it," she said. "It's really a mysterious beauty."

While the fourth and final "Twilight" book was released earlier this summer, Gurling, a former National Park Guide, says he thinks the release of the "Twilight" movie, set for early November, will only generate more attention for Forks.

And while some long for quieter days, others say "Twilight" might have been what this town needed.

"It seems like we're Twilighting all the time," says Charlene Cross, the town's florist. "But at the end of the day, it makes you feel like we're part of something bigger — and I think that makes it worth it."

Sky

2014 RELEASE DATE? (7 DAYS LEFT.)

2008-09-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Status: PACKING AND MOVING STUFF INTO OUR NEW 10X10.

Watching: News.

Listening to: "Caanan"--by Mindless Faith; "Sons of Plunder"; "Land of Confusion"--by Disturbed

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 716.

TOPIC: TANKING DOLLAR AFFECTS OVERSEAS EXCHANGE RATES.

Thanks in part to the foreclosure crisis, the credit crunch, and now the government's insistence that American taxpayers shell out an additional $700B to bail out Wall Street and the failing financial system--the dollar is dropping worse than a teenage girl's skirt at the local prom.

That is having an aggravating affect on overseas exchange rates and it's been making it a challenge for me to pay my editor the money required for The Starchild.

By my estimates, I'm either at the halfway point or I'm nearly done--I've left the final amount up to Linda Culshaw as a courtesy.

We never haggled over what was agreed upon. But this book project of mine is the most important thing to me since Leonardo da Vinci invented the flying machine.

A lot of people don't understand why I would pay an editor to edit this gi-normous novel of mine--because the current thinking says: "Money should flow towards you--not away."

Unfortunately, not many writers these days understand the gravity of their current situation; especially when it involves the traditional book publishing industry.

Last year alone, the industry put out almost 412,000 titles--up nearly 30% from 2006 by my calculations--and that number alone is a cause for worry for first-time authors looking to break into the publishing industry.

With 5 million authors who are serious writers--that gives each first-time author a 12.13% chance to get snagged by a mainstream publisher on the first try.

Or a 1.93 million to 1 shot.

Not very good odds, are they?

No. Not when you have 4,000 publishers in North America alone dealing with over 1.5 billion e-mailed and mailed submissions on a yearly basis alone.

This is what you have to go against as the first-time author. But everyone says that you cannot pay an editor to do the work for you. You have to have a professional mainstream editor do it.

'Lends credibility'--or so I am told.

'Increases my chances of being picked up by one of the big gun publishers'--I keep hearing.

Right.

You just keep telling yourself that.

See, most writers whom dream big dreams end up getting burned in the end by something we call REALITY.

Believe me...I was one of them.

But then I realized that my chances of getting published were planted somewhere next to the temperature of absolute zero (-412F) and as some people know..?

I embarked on my own journey towards getting published.

And have had many setbacks as a result.

Even being homeless, I intend on picking up an auxiliary battery generator this coming month and I'll be using it to power my computer for 2 or 3 hours--so I can finish my books.

However, the continued drop in the dollar has put another possible obstacle on my way to getting the book published.

I kept saying it'll be another 4 years before I can get the book done.

Unfortunately, it may be until either 2013 or 2014 before I can finally bring The Starchild to full circle.

This is affecting me after all--you know. And I suspect that Linda may want me to pay just a little more to make up the difference in the rate exchange. Me paying her $50 a month here doesn't translate automatically to $50 in Aussie currency when she gets it.

I know the amount won't be a whole lot. $100 more tops--if I'm short $3-$5 each transaction.

But--as I may remind everyone reading this--I'm investing money in what I believe will be a modest breadwinner for myself and my wife of 7 years.

Like I've told everyone I know: "I'm not just doing this for myself anymore. I'm also doing this for the woman I love."

So I'm making sure that I have the best product out there and the best book written to my given ability.

Not the mainstream's.

Sky

NOT MUCH TIME LEFT...(10 DAYS LEFT)

2008-09-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Status: PACKING, PACKING, AND PLAYING PAX IMPERIA WHILE I DO IT.

I did get in some writing on The Vampiress Hunter though. 18 new pages of titilating stuff for future readers to pore over.

Watching: Nothing. TV's screwing up again--so it's going to be D-U-M-P-E-D.

Listening to: Lots and lots of taped music while we pack.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 716.

TOPIC: CHAOS REIGNS

I can't stay on for very long these days. Even after we had lost the internet for a few days this past week, I spent some needed time writing.

Just to *write*.

I just don't know when I will get back to it.

Presently, I spent yesterday helping my wife pack her stuff up and mine. We got most everything broken down and boxed. But we only have ten days left before we have to leave here.

It'll take us five to get everything ready. Three to move things into a new storage unit--if my aunt comes through for us. I just found out that my grandmother--on my father's side--passed away this past January.

I only met her once--when she and my aunt came up to give me my father's things--pictures, photos, his service records from his tours in Vietnam so many years ago. (He died in 2004 of throat cancer.)

But my aunt won't say how my grandmother died. She said it was quick and sudden--that's all she knows.

I worked a little bit more on The Vampiress Hunter.

Added a few new chapters.

But on the 25th, I'm going to be posting one last entry here. It's going to be for my new mailing addy.

Anyone is welcome to snail-mail me. Just to drop me a note, say hi, or whatever. I'm way past the stress threshhold nowadays.

I just want to get the fuck out of here as fast as possible. We're both strained and exhausted from having to deal with an uncaring management and a complete tool to boot.

I just want out so we can start over again. It may be several years before we can do anything with our housing situation. Things up here aren't good at all.

I have my inlaws stressed out, my mother wants me to still sell everything I've owned and collected these past 34 years and move back to Vermont.

She won't even say why.

All she keeps giving me is the run around--but I don't need (or want) to be pawned off yet again and be dumped in an unhappy living situation because my family finally got what they wanted.

I'm not doing it!!!

I'm an adult now...I can't make my own fucking decisions!

On another front, April may finally be pregnant. I know I've had false alarms in the past, but this seems different somehow.

It'll be just really bad timing if it is. Good news for us--as we've been trying for 7 years--but the fact that we will be homeless in less than 2 weeks time...?

Isn't going to help matters much.

I'm still in appeals with Social Insecurity. They claimed that I am now cured because of my past job history and the fact that I can write a book.

I am sooo seriously considering suing these assholes for just being stupid...

But now I have to find a way to save up the $1000-$2000 needed for pro-bono work. Because--as I keep finding out--no one will take the case unless it's a money-related money matter or a backpay issue.

Hopefully, in 5 months time, I'll have the money saved up and a lawyer to represent me on my disability problems--not because I can do this and that.

Having Factor Five Leiden has complicated things a great deal more than I thought.

Sky

WRITING QUOTES (20 DAYS LEFT)

2008-09-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

Status: Working on the storage unit angle--still hashing out a plan on how to fit everything in.

Haven't wrote anything on my books. Maybe some writing this coming Wednesday...?

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: Lots and lots of taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: QUOTES FOR THE MUSE

Thought some people might like these quotes I found on the internet.

These are for the writer. Not for normal simpletons whom can't wile themselves around a stanza, a haiku, or a verse of prose. :0P

***

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. ~ François-René de Chateaubriand

The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops. ~ William Saroyan

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. ~ V.S. Naipaul

Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. ~ Rembrandt

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things. To do service, you don't have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job. The rest is literature. ~ Jean Cocteau

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. ~ John Maynard Keynes

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, "Can't you remember anything I told you?" and lets fly with a club. ~ John W. Campbell

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

In my books I have lifted bits from various religions in trying to come to a better understanding; I've made use of religious themes and symbols. Now, as the world becomes more pagan, one has to lead people in the same direction in a different way... ~ Patrick White

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. ~ Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment. ~ Harlan Ellison

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. ~ William Whewell

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true. ~ Bertrand Russell

I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself. ~ Florence Nightingale

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. ~ Richard Feynman

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp. ~ Terry Pratchett

The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see — it is, rather, a light by which we may see — and what we see is life. ~ Robert Penn Warren

The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. ... Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. ~ Peter S. Beagle in The Last Unicorn

I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy. ~ Karen Blixen

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative — much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius — it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations. ~ Henry James

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it. ~ Gustave Moreau

I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. ~ Charlton Heston

Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity. ~ Charles Baudelaire

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together. ~ Jack Kerouac

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes. ~ Mickey Spillane

You imagine that what you can't understand is either spiritual or does not exist. The conclusion is quite wrong; rather there are obviously a million things in the universe that we would need a million quite different organs to understand ... someone blind from birth cannot imagine the beauty of a landscape, the colors of a painting or the shadings of an iris. He will imagine them as something palpable, edible, audible or olfactory. Likewise, if I were to explain to you what I perceive by the senses you do not have, you would interpret it as something that could be heard, seen, touched, smelled or tasted; but it is not like that. ~ Cyrano de Bergerac

Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision. ~ Penn Jillette

Philosophy is based on speculation, on logic, on thought, on the synthesis of what we know and on the analysis of what we do not know. Philosophy must include within its confines the whole content of science, religion and art. ~ P. D. Ouspensky

Try to remember this: what you project
Is what you will perceive; what you perceive
With any passion, be it love or terror,
May take on whims and powers of its own.
~ Richard Wilbur ~

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour. ~ Victor Hugo in Les Misérables

Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player. ~ Alice Cooper

Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness. ~ Stendhal

The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed. ~ Charles de Montesquieu

I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. ~ Susan Sontag

At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. ~ Yukio Mishima

The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find. ~ Sir Edmund Hillary

I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine. ~ Robinson Jeffers

If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend. ~ Baltasar Gracián

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse. ~ E. M. Forster

Sky

THE SIDE EFFECT OF BEING 'TOO POPULAR'...

2008-09-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

'Potter' publisher looks to promote next big thing

2008-09-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

Status: Getting the storage unit and should start moving stuff over the next few days up until the first part of next week. (In theory.)

Wrote a little bit more on The Vampiress Hunter, but I plan on shifting to a little bit on The Price of Freedom and Stories of the Dead Earth.

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: Nothing.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: SOMETHING TO IRRITATE ME WITH EVEN MORE!!!!

Since Harry Potter has passed on, Scholastic has decided to try for something else with all the glitz, glitter, and endless migraines for people like myself whom are sick to death over the hype of Harry Potter, Twilight, and now this "39 Clues" saga.

Is it me or does this remind you of the days when reality shows started to be up and coming and then suddenly...everyone wanted to do it???

Because of Harry Potter, publishers have been milking this grandiose idea that people will be turned on by the thought of extravagant series that will wow the mass and woo the readers--and I'm just like: "Please...if there is a god out there...? Have him/her/it--shoot me!!!"

Put me out of my fucking misery...that's all I ask.

Getting traditionally published just isn't the same anymore. It really isn't.

It's now become a place where you have to come up with these asinine sagas that will grip the publisher, enthrall the target audience and bore normal people like me...? TO FUCKING DEATH WITH ALL THE OVERBLOWN HYPE!!!

(And here I thought Twilight was bad enough? SM's rabid fan base is getting their heart's desire by having Twilight out on the big screen this December 12th. But I don't expect it too all that well. The fall line up for this year's closing movie saga is piss poor and wanting. There's just nothing there to watch!)

So glad that I don't have to deal with the mainstream anymore. I'll be even more glad when the day comes when we don't have to become traditionally published just be called an "author".

But that's me. I still have a lot of writing to do--but not this month. It could be early next year when I start up again for real. (If things don't work out as well as I had hoped. We still haven't found a place yet. Housing's taking its sweet-assed time--despite our many unreturned phone calls--and the choices to pick is relatively slim to none. We may still end up having to get rid of all our animals. (Simply because--looking around--there is less space to camp out and nowhere to go. Everything's too overdeveloped.)

Anyway...here's the article.

***

NEW YORK - On Sept. 9, the U.S. publisher of "Harry Potter" will premiere a highly ambitious series with a mystery ending for readers and a couple of puzzlers for the industry: How big is the market for a multimedia story — and can a phenomenon be conceived by a publisher rather than created by the public?

"The 39 Clues" is a planned 10-volume set about young Amy and Dan Cahill and their worldwide search for the secret to their family's power. The first book, "The Maze of Bones," is written by Rick Riordan of "The Lightning Thief" fame and has an announced first printing of 500,000. Steven Spielberg has already acquired film rights to the series.

Designed for boys and girls ages 8 to 12, each book will have a different writer, including such best-sellers as Gordon Korman and Jude Watson. Backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, "The 39 Clues" also features game cards, a contest with a $10,000 first prize and a sophisticated Web site that includes games, blogs, videos and thousands of pages of background.

"The word we always used was 'groundbreaking,'" says Scholastic executive editorial director David Levithan. "We wanted to be the first out there to introduce this kind of multidimensional thing."

A Scholastic team, led by Levithan and including about a dozen editors, thought of the series about three years ago, working from the idea of a treasure hunt. The essential outline, including the ending, was set by the publisher. Authors were asked to fill in the details, taking a thread, as Levithan describes it, and turning it into a blanket.

"It's a different kind of challenge," Levithan says. "To use a movie analogy, each director of the 'Harry Potter' films brings their own voice and their own vision to what J.K. Rowling has done. You still feel there's a consistency there, and part of the fun is seeing what they add to it."

Scholastic quickly decided that "The 39 Clues," its title an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps," would make an ideal multiplatform event. Readers might check out the Web site, just as kids who love online games might then turn to the books. A recent study by the American Library Association revealed that many librarians already use games to attract young people and, ideally, get them interested in books.

"I love the gaming aspect of 'The 39 Clues,'" says Jenny Levine, a digital specialist for the library association. "I could also see a lot of libraries forming '39 Clues' clubs the way they've had Pokemon clubs."

Books for all ages often originate with publishers, and countless best-sellers are made through marketing. But a blockbuster, whether "Harry Potter" or Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" novels, virtually always happens spontaneously.

"Harry Potter" was born in the brain of Rowling and immortalized by millions worldwide. The staff at Scholastic, and the British publisher, Bloomsbury, were sure they had a hit, even a classic, but not a record breaker. Other children's franchises, including "Clifford" and "Junie B. Jones," began simply as books and expanded only in response to public demand.

"I remember when 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' first came out; nobody knew it was going to be so big. That's how it works. You need the kids to grab onto a book and tell each other about it," says Beth Puffer, manager of the Bank Street Bookstore, based in New York.

"I can't think of a phenomenon that was presented that way from the start. This is a very unique situation."

Puffer and other booksellers are enthusiastic about "39 Clues," although unsure whether it will be a sensation. Kimberly Diehm, co-owner of the Neverending Story Children's Bookshoppe in Las Vegas, calls the first volume "a perfect tale" by Riordan, but says she has noticed little discussion about it among her fellow retailers.

Becky Anderson, co-owner of the Anderson Bookstores in suburban Chicago, says she is a little wary of the project's ambitions: "It was presented to us as the thing that's going to replace 'Harry Potter.'" But she was "blown away" by "The 39 Clues."

"We're investing big in this," she says. "I think we see it as a way to get some of those nonreaders into reading."

Other multimedia projects are being developed. HarperCollins is working with former Scholastic executive Lisa Holton on an eight-book series for girls. Dutton, a division of Penguin Group (USA), recently acquired a mystery trilogy by "C.S.I." creator Anthony Zuiker that will be complemented by an interactive Web site. Simon & Schuster will release "Spaceheadz," Internet sites and a series of chapter books co-authored by Jon Scieszka and Francesco Sedita.

"In the past we've made the mistake of demonizing other media, saying all TV is bad, all computers are bad, and all books are good," says Scieszka, appointed last year by the Library of Congress as the National Ambassador of Young People's Literature. "Kids know that it's not true; there is great television and there are great games. I just also want to make sure that we don't forget what's unique about a book, losing yourself in an extended narrative."

"I think it will be fascinating to find out if this is a trend that we'll be seeing a lot more of," says Dutton senior editor Ben Sevier, who added that he and other publishers would be watching how the public reacts to "The 39 Clues."

"It's hard to manufacture a phenomenon," he says of the series. "It's an enormous risk, and it signals an enormous enthusiasm."

Sky

NEW MARCHING ORDERS ARE FINALLY IN? (33 DAYS LEFT)

2008-08-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

Status: Packing up still. We have about 92% of the heavy stuff boxed up.

I also wrote a few more pages on The Vampiress Hunter today. A little happier I can write, but it doesn't take the heavy apprehensiveness that I am feeling right now.

Watching: Nothing.

Listening to: Taped music. "Red Phoenix"--by Decoded Feedback

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: GODS...HOW I HATE THIS...

Can't say that I'm all overjoyed by the latest news we got from housing. (Three weeks after the fact.)

They didn't count the amount my mother-in-law gave my wife over the past year ($217) against me as "income"--but the new housing voucher numbers leaves me with a bit of a conundrum: Can we realistically stay here by moving into a one-bedroom?

Will housing allow us to?

But either way, we're screwed six ways till the start of the next century.

That's for sure.

I have to prepare for all types of contingencies. I can't just wait until housing gives us the all clear--which could take another week.

At least I know now that I have to get a storage unit. And the bigger...the better. (We have a lot more stuff than I thought.)

I wrote a little more on The Vampiress Hunter--giving Marlena a date for the night.

At least she's having better luck than her is creator at the moment. :9(

(It bites when your book characters have it better than you do.)

Sky

A WRITER'S GUIDE TO TORTURING YOUR OC'S

2008-08-24T16:02:00.001-07:00

PRICE GOUGING OF THE WORST KIND

2008-08-22T01:57:00.000-07:00

Status: Got a few rolls of packaging tape--from the $25 my inlaws gave my wife for her birthday.

It's good enough to get things going again--for just a little while.

But we have so much to do between now and the first of September. (Which is now 9 days away. Then it's 4 weeks to zero hour.)

I also wrote a few pages on The Vampiress Hunter. But don't expect me to applaud myself. I'm still not in full 'writing mode' yet.

There's still too much going on for me to remain completely focused on my book projects.

Watching: Oddly enough, the TV functions normally--after plugging it in for a test, Thursday. I think the convertor gave it a coronary and it "flipped out".

Five months off and it works now.

It's just too bad we may not be around much longer to enjoy it.

Listening to: Taped music. "A Daisy Chain For Satan."--By My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: HARD TIMES A'COMIN'.

My wife got $25 for her birthday today. And since we were (still are) in desperate need of some packaging tape and cat food, we decided to get both--since the cats were running low and we had zero tape.

When we shopped at Wal-Mart, we were...to put it bluntly stunned by what we saw.

One roll of packing tape--the clear stuff: $4.44 each.

2 rolls together? $4.44 each.

The 4-paks? $8.49.

One bag of catfood? Up a dollar from last month to $10.98.

It took us 20 minutes to decide what we needed. Forget me transplanting more from my garden this month with new potting soil to mix with the old--I made the ultimate sacrifice and spent what little money I had left on making sure we had enough packaging tape to last us for at last 5 more days--enough to pack more stuff into the boxes I got a few days ago.

So we got 2 rolls of the packaging tape for $4.44, the bag of catfood, and I went and got 2 smaller packing rolls for $4.26.

But I couldn't believe this! I could understand buying stuff in bulk or two-for-onsies and all that sorts of thing...but when they start charging the same price for a single as they do a double--that's where I start to look at myself, look at the world I live in and think: We are so fucked.

Pardon my language, but this kind of price-gouging just hurts people like myself.

I sat at the Subway express counter and thought to myself: "This has got to end. We're just getting priced out of everything--not just my comics, or my occasional book, or a candy bar--but everything."

Rent, utilities, public transportation, basic essentials...

I don't honestly know how much longer I'm going to be able to continue absorbing everything. I'm barely hanging on as it is.

And next year, they are forecasting food prices are going up another 5% to 6% in 2009.

How the hell am I supposed to keep up with kind of inflation? All it's doing is hurting me.

I try to do what I can to make every dollar I have count. But it doesn't seem to go as far as I would've liked. Have a little extra lying around. A tiny reserve cushion.

But it's not there.

All I can think of is how my mom did it with raising the three of us by herself so many years ago, and I just can't see how I can apply the same principle to a world that's 24 years out of place and 53 times more expensive; with so little money.

What do I do? What do I spend it on? What's more important?

Despite my best efforts, I'm rapidly losing this fight. I just don't know where to turn to next for help.

I...I just don't know anymore. The government just doesn't seem to give a shit about people in my situation...the middle-class is pretty much history--and everybody I know here in cyberspace and the real world is hurting.

My father-in-law lost his job yesterday and it's thrown my inlaws into a state of near-panic--since his income was paying most of the bills all these years--since I got married to April.

And now...even she's contemplating divorce because she doesn't want to live in a tent or out on the streets.

When I got home today, I put my foot down. I said: "We've been through a lot together these last 6.5 years and the last thing I need is you to tell me we should get divorced because we are in a serious fix right now. We aren't separating and that's that. We'll get through this somehow. We always do." I went into the bedroom and wanted to see if Jaws III recorded while we were gone. (A bad recording--but okay to watch.)

I'm just tired of that. Ever since I can remember, I've always been shut out of everything. The moment a crisis pops up with my family, my well-being and wefare is sacrificed automatically for their personal comfort.

I'm left flailing out of control.

My mother takes in my two brothers and I get left to fend for myself. This happened many times over the past 13 years--before they all left me for Vermont. But this kind of abuse scarred me deeply.

Sure, I was an adult back then, but I was not in a stable living situation either.

A few of my friends were sympathetic to my brothers' problems and causes; offering to help, but when it came to me?

"Tough luck. You can do without."

I told April when we were going to Wal-Mart today: "What did I do to deserve this kind of treatment? Did I piss off everyone the day I was born disabled and seen as a burden for the rest of this country in general? Why is that people have to treat me like this?"

I went on saying, "Julie (a crazed friend of my wife's) wants you to live with her--but not in a tent--but sees no problem with me living out on the streets or by myself--with no one to be with."

I said: "I can't have that. Not when my health is going down hill mighty fast and I might up dead by accident or something equally worse. And how would you know what happened to me if you weren't there? That's why I don't like Julie. She's too obsessed, uncaring, and selfish. She wants what we have, or don't want--and would rather have you all to herself than have me around either her, you, or Joseph. (Her boyfriend.)"

I finished by saying: "We are soulmates. Husband and wife. Bound by a mutual contract that pretty much illustrates what we are going through now: 'For better or for worse'. There is no bailing out when the going gets tough. No chickening out when faced with a cold reality. We have to do this together. Not apart."

I'll be damned if I'm going to let this happen to me. We went through hell together before getting married--both of us nearly dead for real.

I'm not to let something as being homeless be a cause to separate the two of us by proxy--because she's scared and I'm having issues of my own. Y'know?

This is the way the world is: No one cares, no one gives a shit. It's everybody for themselves when it comes to crunch time.

But I've sacrificed way too much to simply lose out on what little I have to me and the woman that I loved and married.

I'm not going to accept that!

Sky

A $500 LESSON

2008-08-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Status: Packing, packing, and more packing.

Watching: The rain come down in buckets.

Listening to: "Nevermeant-Version 2"--By Razed in Black

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: CREDIT CHECK UPDATE

Some things should've been made more clearer to me when I first started out. But I guess when you live life as destitute as mine--some things tend to slip.

Our credit check came back rejected--as you all know--and yesterday, we got a letter explaining why. Some smaller outstanding collection debts is what dinged the two of us--not our student loan defaults.

Together, we owe about $500--which is preventing us from acquiring a new place to live. Of course, my understanding of things was: Bad credit affects your ability to purchase a home, buy a car, or a boat.

No one said anything about renting an apartment. It's odd is how in the past my brothers were still able to get into a place when they had bad credit--before they were married--but I strongly suspect that they didn't have tightening credit standards to deal with in the face of a shrinking market and continued fall out from the foreclosure market and credit crunch.

I believe that this is what contributed to our recent slew of rejections as well. But it's a little odd how we are getting dinged when the amount we owe is less than $1,000--and we have zero credit card debt. (The only one thing I am eternally grateful for with my limited income: Low income=zero credit cards.)

Like I said earlier, it most likely has to do with everyone tightening their credit standards--to also ensnare poor people like myself with bad credit; even though what I have isn't considered 'absolute critical' or 'high priority' requirements.

The ironic thing was, is that we were trying to get a place that accepts people with low income.

Never in a million years did I think I would get nailed on this front--seeing how we still have perfect rental history.

Just another lesson in life I'll have to take care of in the coming months--before next year's attempt is made once more. Hopefully then, things will have changed for the better. (And we're still hoping we can slide into a one-bedroom apartment. My FIL lost his job--which was paying the bills at my mother-in-law's place; and right now...? Neither my in-laws are very happy. My SIL is sleeping on their couch and my BIL has been living there for as long as I can recall--since getting married in 2002. So...the plan on staying with my inlaws for a few months after September is effectively scratched off.)

However, I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with this until after my first book was published. With the extra money, I was planning on wiping the slate clean.

The idea was this: I would stay where I was until 2012--by getting The Starchild published--build up my reserves of added income from my sales, pay off what little debt I have and our two student loans, and then move to Montana.

Least...that was the plan. (lol)

Of course, I wasn't expecting to move prematurely either. Or be forced to put off publishing the book until a latter date. (Which is still up in the air. However, I still want people to vote. This will give me an idea on how much people will be willing to pay for my novel--given how I'm not that greedy. But I figure...since I'm putting almost 20 years into this book, I'm entitled to a little leeway here. (I know, I know...I'm insane for taking this long with The Starchild. :0) ) )

Unfortunately, I couldn't do any of this with what I'm playing with now for income. Not when there is so much to do and so little time left to accomplish it in.

I had to pick my battles and fight what I could--and leave the rest to fate; while slowly building towards a better future for myself and my wife.

That's all I had left for me: My books. My happy little future for two people and a bunch of furry children.

Not much to ask for--is it?

Sky

(Final edit: 2:31 AM. August 21st, 2008.)

OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS TO FORGET!

2008-08-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

Status: Screwed, blued, and tatooed.

Doing: Packing, packing, and...panicking. (Still. What would you expect when you have only six weeks left to get the schmuck out of Dodge?)

Watching: The sun set with temps in the low 80s. (We're in the middle of a mini-heatwave at the moment.)

Listening to: "She Sells Sanctuary"--by The Cult.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 555.

TOPIC: BRAIN-DEAD AS USUAL.

Three years or so ago, I started buying containers at Wal-Mart--after we started seeing the writing on the wall that we would either have to move or be homeless.

Never once did I think that we would also be using packing boxes as well! lol

I envisioned that we would get everything into plastic containers long before we had to do anything. I wanted to graduate from using boxes for the first time ever and wanted something that held up better than cardboard.

But over the last 3 years, I did what I could with the containers. True, I got most of everything in them, but we still had a lot left over.

Buying packing tape never entered my mind. Not the least bit.

So--in my haste--I checked to see what we had for stores. Only two rolls so far; which we are using sparingly until I get my check on the 3rd of next month; which happens to be my next vascular appointment.

The trouble was--this is a rescheduled one. I had forgotten what time my appointment was and showed up 1.5 hours late. (My excuse? Well, you're looking at it: All the packing has caused us both to become very frazzled here.)

On a side note, I'm going to be giving out my new mailing address--so that people can contact me.

One on myspace, one on this blog, and one on my Yahoo! 360 page and also on Quick Topic. (Where my daily diary is being kept.)

This will be posted on or about the 5th of September. (If we can't secure something from housing first. The one-bedroom unit is looking less and less likely. But possibly, we could get into a renovated bottom-floor 2-bedroom unit. However, don't discount this being a lifesaver for the two of us. Housing still has to approve the rent amount. And if so, it could only buy us--at the most--another year here. After that, we won't be able to stay no matter what befalls us.)

After that, anyone is free to stay in touch with me and my wife.

Sky

GOING FROM REALLY BAD TO EXCESSIVELY WORSE

2008-08-12T19:14:00.001-07:00

Status: Screwed, blued, and tatooed.

Doing: Packing, packing, and...panicking.

Watching: The sun set.

Listening to: Nothing at the moment.

Not unless you count more Razed in Black.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 512.

TOPIC: CRUSHED

We could've pulled $20s out of our ass--turned back the hands of time--invented a time-machine--and do all the sorts of things we are now simply kicking ourselves in the ass for...in the here and now.

But the truth is...we can't change our destinies or our fates. We have to make what is given to us the best we can do.

And right now? Things aren't looking up for us. We are simply being railroaded and shuttered out--and it looks like this will be the end of us for the time being.

Our credit check came back denied. There was simply nothing that we could further do.

Forget doing future credit checks. We just got kicked hard in the stomach yesterday--after getting the crushing news. This means that we don't have a home outside of the one we have now.

I personally think that the foreclosure mess and the credit crunch had even the rental industry spooked badly. Because now, they are being so anal retentive over everything.

And we are still trying to figure out what the hell could've caused the denial. Our rental history is still perfect, but I'll admit, my credit history isn't great. And it isn't because of the stupid credit cards.

Never had one.

The primary thing is a student loan that I can no longer pay back. With my income low as it is and the prospects of finding a job again so remote...? There's not much we can do about that.

But this effectively shuts us out of 90% of all the current rental properties here in the Puget Sound.

Because with this denial, we already know what will happen when the others would come in as--if we made that decision to go ahead and continue next month. (Which I had planned.)

So...

I was right after all--but I wish to God I wasn't. However, this was going to happen to us sooner or later.

We are literally hitting the upper limits of flexibility and maneuvering room here--in regards to renting and staying put.

The cold reality now is that we are going to be homeless by the end of September. And it is the worst time to become homeless for this part of the state.

Our current management knows that we are on the ropes and there isn't much we can do to salvage our current situation--or save face for that matter.

We got another batch of possible bad news today. Our primary housing coordinator--who's a real bitch--decided that (after 6 years), my wife's small cash allotments from her mother every few months or so--should be treated as INCOME and be counted against me and my current amount.

I was appalled!

Truly!

How can one treat $20 or $40 every few months or so as income?

One, the money never stays. It's usually being used for things like laundry money...??? (Does that ever ring a bell with anyone here?! Seriously! I can only do so much with my limited income--and I do try to keep our piles of clothes...cleaned!!!)

So both my wife and I welcome my mother's charity now and then--to help us out. And we have never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Especially with recent events surrounding my cat, Kivata Gigante.

(Odd how housing never went after me for the amount that a collective few donated to get us through the month of April.)

But how could this be considered income??? Don't you have to have a thing called a J-O-B to have sources of stable cash flows?!

Gods!

So this whole mess--this whole affair could very well kill our housing. Bury it off the needle--because housing would demand that we pay back the amount my mother loaned us for small, inconsequential things to get us by.

Knowing my MIL, she wouldn't consent to handing over her account information willingly. And that would condemn us to being homeless for certain.

Without housing, we're fucked beyond repair. There would be little point in trying to find a place to live--because I simply don't have the money to get one.

It would take me years to get a place.

And even if we did have jobs, we still would be facing the same problems in the here and now.

Nothing would change.

People speak about the homeless problems, the need for affordable housing, and etc, etc, etc...but like one writer in the Everett Herald said today: "...there are a lot of good people trying their best to help, but they have little authority and less money. Good intentions are universally derailed by a petrified, pass-the-buck, not-my-job bureaucracy.

I can just see the poor street person, a pocket full of change from collecting cans, standing at a pay phone dialing number after number and getting the same answer -- no one is available to take your call now, but if you leave a message ... Sure."

This is generally what we would get.

But this wouldn't cure me or my wife of our impending homelessness problem.

So we have 6.5 weeks to try and change our situation for the better.

But it's a big IF.

I'm sorry if I don't sound all that optimistic. But when faced with losing the only place you've called home for 11 years now--it gets harder to look that same optimist in the eye and share in his or her bubbly enthusiasm.

My wife just wants to put her head under water and drown herself and I would rather put myself under the wheels of a bus and have the guy run me over.

That's how we felt today after getting that message from our housing coordinator--on top of everything else. We're both angry, frustrated, scared, helpless, and just plain worn out. We just don't have the faith, energy, or strength to carry on in the face of this plight.

We've done everything we can--but it's just not enough. There simply isn't anything there to catch us if we fall.

To allow us to keep going for just a little bit longer.

We are really on our own here.

I haven't felt the need to write since this problem started with our voucher being denied. I've tried...but it just doesn't seem to have that sense of urgency attached to it.

So I've stopped trying and just let things go for the time being. It hurts. The sharp pain in my soul--just overwhelming at times--but what can I do in the mean time?

Writing for me was just an escape mechanism from the world I lived in. When I was homeless in the mid-90s, it was just something for me to do. To pass the time.

But this time...it's different. I look at my writing like it's my lifeboat. My reason to escape this hell hole that poverty and abject income has sunk me under.

But I also knew that it was going to take me some time. And all I needed was just enough to get the ball rolling and something stabilized in my corner of the universe.

I got things rolling, but nowhere near enough to consider me good to go.

I just don't think I'll be able to finish what I started. Because I'm not going to be on the 'net to promote and advertise myself or The Starchild.

And that's going to be my main regret right then and there. I won't be here to share in what I've gone and created.

Because of our homeless situation.

Sky

TWILIGHT OVERLOAD

2008-08-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Status: In the middle of a housing crisis and not able to write on my projects currently--even though I'm still wanting to! lol

Doing: Transplanting my peppers into larger pots. (At least--I think those are peppers!)

Watching: The shadows on the wall--as the sun goes by.

Listening to: Nothing at the moment.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 504.

TOPIC: ONE OVERWHELMED AUTHOR

I don't touch base on this--hell...I try to avoid discussing anything related to Harry Potter or Twilight--because neither book is my cup of tea.

I prefer to set my own course in life as a writer. I don't need to imitate someone else's success--when I have my own to rely on for inspiration and personal guidance.

But this article I found on the internet reminded me that not everything is so cut and dry when it comes to being published in the mainstream industry.

With each passing year, I find myself glad that I'm not going to be a part of it.

I don't need the headaches of becoming famous or finding myself overwhelmed--which I already am--or something that forces me to forget what it means to be a writer; than just being a commercial and literary success to someone else's bottom line.

Fans I can do without, the media attention I can ignore without regret, all the hundreds of thousands of dollars made from an advance...?

Nothing replaces the joy and the relief of having completed something that took a very long time to come to fruition.

Something I can take personal pride in--knowing that no one else will be able to duplicate what I set out to do and been able to do.

The article also served as a pointed reminder just how difficult and bad things have gotten for the publishing industry as a whole.

Things for them aren't getting any easier.

Which is why I avoid becoming so limited in my pursuits of becoming a self-published author under my own specialized imprint. (And that by itself--isn't evil; considering all the immense time, effort, and money I have been putting into this little venture of mine.)

I'm expecting some good to come out of all of this heartache, anguish, and personal pain which I've endured all these years.

Think of me as another Prometheus--pushing that giant boulder up that steep hill; according to the Greek mythos.

***

The Online Fan World of the Twilight Vampire Books

Harry who?

A year after J.K. Rowling wrapped up the blockbuster Harry Potter saga, author Stephenie Meyer has booksellers almost ready to forget the brilliant young wizard.

Her Twilight books, about the tangled relationship between a handsome vampire and an endearingly ordinary teenage girl, have become reliable smash hits.

When Breaking Dawn, the last of the four-book series, comes out on Aug. 2, it's expected to surpass all her previous efforts, with an initial print run of 3.2 million copies.

Meyers success isnt due simply to her vivid imagination for vampire romance. She also figured out before almost anyone in the book industry how to connect with readers over the Internet and inspire them to build on her work. Since Meyer published the first Twilight book in 2005, she has reached out to readers on social networking sites, such as MySpace (NYSE:NWS - News), and participated in online discussion groups.

Fired-up fans have championed her books on Amazon.com (NasdaqGS:AMZN - News) and set up their own sites, such as Twilight Lexicon and TwilightMOMS. That has helped propel sales of the series to 7.5 million books. "Other authors have pockets of fans online, but nothing to this extent," says Trevor Dayton, a vice-president at Indigo, Canada's leading bookseller. "Stephenie Meyers Twilight series is the first social networking best seller."

Executives in the book industry have long understood that the Internet can help authors connect with fans, of course. Major releases are usually backed by author videos, a Web site, and interviews with influential book bloggers.

But Meyer, a 34-year-old mother of three from Phoenix, went well beyond standard marketing. She engaged with online readers to answer their most detailed questions about the star-crossed lovers, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. She put up her own Web site, in addition to the one by her publisher, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, posting her personal e-mail address and family photos. And with Little Brown's help, Meyer threw a real-life prom for her Net fans last year, drawing a huge crowd decked out in flowing vampire capes and fake leg casts in homage to the accident-prone Bella.

Meyer's readers have responded by creating an entire world of Twilight on the Web. Cousins Chris McElvogue and Georgina Tena launched Twilighters.org last year to discuss the books with other readers. Now their site follows every stitch of Twilight news, from plans for book release parties to gossip about the Twilight movie due out in December. The Internet is the best way to connect with other fans, says McElvogue. Twilight has grown into such a sprawling franchise that it has become difficult for Meyer, who declined to comment for this story, to stay as involved online as in the past.

Her success is a rare bright spot in the gloomy book industry. Book publishers have struggled for years as Americans turn to other forms of entertainment, from cable TV to video games. Publishers have responded by cranking out ever more new titles, hitting 411,422 last year, up from 247,777 in 2002, according to researcher R.R. Bowker. Yet industry revenues, at $41 billion, are barely growing.

With hits increasingly rare, many book publishers suffer from boom and bust cycles. Most major houses live and die by the blockbuster, says Michael Norris, analyst with researcher Simba Information. A publisher's revenue may be up 10% one year and down 10% the next, depending on the performance of just one or two books out of thousands. Scholastic pulled in $240 million from its Harry Potter franchise in the first quarter after the release of Deathly Hallows last summer but saw that figure drop to a mere $10 million in the most recent quarter.

Now authors are beginning to imitate the online strategies Meyer pioneered in hopes of creating communities of engaged readers.

The hits Freakonomics, The 4-Hour Workweek, and The Last Lecture have been backed by similar efforts. "Her success has inspired other authors," says Jennifer Northcutt, fiction buyer at Borders Group, the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain. "Theyve learned you have to be active online."

Twilight was born on June 2, 2003. As Meyer explained on her site, she woke up that morning after a dream about a striking teenage vampire in a sunny meadow with an ordinary girl. The youngsters were falling in love, but the vampire was torn between his desire for the girl's affection and for her blood. That day, between making lunch and taking her three young sons -- ages 1, 3, and 5 -- to swimming lessons, Meyer wrote 10 pages. After that, she couldn't stop.

She moved a desk into the middle of her living room so she could work while her kids played nearby.

She wrote late into the night, blasting progressive rock on her headphones.

In those first few weeks, Meyer was exhausted but ecstatic. After graduating from Brigham Young University with an English major in 1995, the stay-at-home mom could never finish the stories she tried writing. Twilight was different. She says she could hear the couple's voices in her head. The writing came easily. The series begins with Bella moving reluctantly to soggy Forks, Wash. She meets Edward on the first day at her new high school. The dangers of their forbidden relationship propel the story. Meyer finished writing in three months.

She soon had a $750,000, three-book deal, a vast sum for a first-time author. (With the millions in royalties since, her husband, an auditor, was able to quit his job recently to look after their kids.)

Marketing for the 2005 book launch started with the standard Net fare. Meyer did interviews with bloggers, and Little Brown created a darkly gothic Web site. But the author thought the site's design didn't fit her personality. So she created the more lighthearted Stepheniemeyer.com.

She plastered it with photos of herself and her fans at readings and provided a wry autobiography, with tales of growing up in a Brady Bunch-size family. She also gave bubbly updates on her book tours and peeks into her home life. One photo showed her sons at Halloween, dressed as a Power Ranger, Napoleon Dynamite, and Captain Hook.

Fans were drawn in primarily by their love of the book. The relationship between Edward and Bella may be the stuff of fantasy, but it mirrors the real-life angst and passion of the teenage years. What set Twilight apart was the way teens tracked down fellow readers immediately after closing the books. Within a month of the first book's release, fan sites began to appear. Brittany Gardener started a MySpace group to discuss the book after reading it in one night in December 2006.

Her group eventually drew 60,000 members.

Meyer eagerly followed her fans online. She'd never heard of MySpace, but once she discovered Gardener's group, she signed up. She started dropping in, answering fans' questions. ("If Bella ever had a pet, would it be hard for Edward to come around?" "What percent of vampires occupy America?")

Meyers involvement inspired her fans. Lori Joffs, a stay-at-home mom in Nashville, fell in love with Twilight in early 2006 and began writing a version of the book from Edward's point of view. In February, Joffs posted her rewrite of four chapters at FanFiction.net.

Two weeks later, Meyer left a review: "I'm having a great time reading your vision of things." Joffs says she was thrilled and e-mailed Meyer explaining that she wanted to start a Web site to organize the book's facts. Meyer replied that she loved the idea and offered to fill in the characters' backstories. That April, Joffs created Twilight Lexicon, now the most popular fan site, drawing 30,000 daily visitors.

In 2006, Meyer used the Net to meet fans in person. On her Web site, she arranged "I Love Edward" parties, gathering with her readers in libraries and bookstores. Fans began traveling thousands of miles to participate.

Meyer kept trying new ways to reach out to readers. During a book signing in the fall of 2006 for New Moon, the second book, college student Kady Weatherford joked that Meyer should throw a Twilight prom. Meyer relayed the idea to Little Brown, which liked it and helped organize the event. In November, Meyer announced the prom online just ahead of the launch of the third book in the series. The 500-guest event sold out in six hours, prompting the committee to add another prom. It also sold out.

On May 5, 2007, fans crammed into an Arizona State University gym. They whooped wildly when Meyer, in a burgundy dress with her dark hair up in ringlets, climbed onstage.

After the release of Eclipse in August 2007, thousands of people started showing up at her signings. Meyer took her e-mail address off her site and kept in touch mainly through exchanges on fan sites. In December she visited TwilightMOMS. "Hi, my fellow moms," she wrote. "It's just so cool that I'm not the only 30+ mom and wife in love with fictional underage vampires and werewolves."

Still, the distance between the superstar author and her Internet fan base is widening. Meyer has two books out this year, Breaking Dawn and The Host, her first adult book. She also consulted on the $37 million Twilight movie. While Meyer and her publicist keep fan sites in the loop on key events, she can't maintain the close personal contact with readers she used to have.

On her blog and MySpace page, the chatty, personal reports have given way to more standard marketing.

And in a major shift, Meyer is asking fans to pull back online. On July 7 she asked the top sites to close their forums three weeks before Breaking Dawn's premiere so that early readers couldn't spoil the plot by revealing details. Most fans are complying. But some aren't happy. "This seems so incredibly counterintuitive to me," wrote one on TwilightMOMS.

Meyer may have been far ahead of the book industry in building a fan base online. But she doesnt have all the answers to balancing accessibility and fame. "Stephenie is a total sweetheart," says Michelle Vieira, who started trading e-mails with Meyer in 2005. "She was open for fans to talk to. Now it's impossible. She's hugely busy."

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

2008-08-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

Status: In the middle of a housing crisis and not able to write on my projects currently--even though a part of me is screaming to! lol

Doing: Taking it easy.

Watching: The shadows on the wall--as the sun goes by.

Listening to: "She Sells Sanctuary"--by Rare Cult; "Ten Thousand Fists"--by Disturbed.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 504.

TOPIC: NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS.

It's been a few busy days for this struggling writer. I went and got some packing boxes from Wal-Mart and my wife and I are getting ready to start packing up the remainder of our things rather soon.

We haven't heard anything from Oxford Squares Apartments, but it doesn't seem like all bad news to us. After all, no news is good news...right?

The weather has been oppressively hot and I've been suffering because of that. It wouldn't surprise me if my INR numbers dropped another full percentage point from last month's readings.

My garden's doing much better this time around and the Purple Haze carrots have started to blossom. I've been trying to figure out exactly what to put them in--but seeing how the styrofoam cups have been a massive boom for me...?

Why not use containers?

I've also started to write on my short stories again after 11 years of doing nothing with them. The 31 volumes of short stories has a broad range of topics from Native Americanism to time travel.

Each short story touches on some theme and runs about 100-200 pages minimum. I finished 4 from the first volume entitled, DreamScapes. But they need to be rewritten anyways.

So that's what I've been doing for the last few days--in an attempt to keep my mind off what will lay ahead for me and April. It's not going to be easy by a long shot.

Moving and having to compress everything is never easy. Being on such limited income is even equally hard and depressing--because I have to literally come up with a new payment schedule or something; just to make this work.

And it's going to be months before I go back to what I was doing before.

This is assuming--of course--we pass the credit check and are able to move at all.

No matter what--uncertainty still plagues people like me in situations such as this. It's just a part of the life we live.

No matter how much we try to change it for the better.

We are who we always will be.

Sky

A QUIET WEEKEND.

2008-08-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Status: In the middle of a housing crisis and not able to write on my projects currently--even though a part of me is screaming to! lol

Doing: Taking a break from all this running around.

Watching: The shadows on the wall--as the sun goes by.

Listening to: "Anthem"--by Filo and Peri (7:47 Original version)

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 504.

TOPIC: A SMALL BREATHER BEFORE THINGS BEGIN AGAIN.

Things were pretty nuts since Friday. April and I spent that day literally walking around and getting things done which we need done immediately.

Though I lack the money now to do anything about this month's current need for more credit check apps; we're hoping that one will be enough.

I have just a little money left over to get April her blood-pressure meds from Wal-Mart and I'm left debating whether I should get another bag of catfood or some boxes. (I left my bills, my $30 stash of monthly comics, and Kushiel's Mercy to the mercy of the gods themselves--and used that extra money to get some supplies and other essentials for the house: More on this, little on that...plus we grabbed some food along the way as well. After all, you can't walk 7 hours straight without having at least some kind of fuel for the long road ahead.)

But we were both worn out and exhausted from our ordeal and have to worry about the next month.

Oddly enough, we still haven't heard from the ALJ yet--so we're dreading that decision as well--because this does have a major impact on what's going to happen to both me and April down the road.

But gauging how long it's taking the judge longer and longer to get back--it must mean something. After all, when you're struck down with as many health problems and disabilities as I have had in my current 34 years of living; rarely do things improve or get better overnight.

I've had to live and adapt to my cerebral palsy, but it doesn't mean that I'm cured of my host problem. I just wonder why is it that the government agencies and those whom deal with people like me have to force me to go on living a lie; by insinuating that the only way I can keep my benefits is to act both handicapped and retarded at the same time; depending on the nature of the disability itself.

It's going to be a rather large disapppointment for them--seeing how I can't go back to the way I originally was. :0)

I'm a little calmer today than I have been in weeks. Maybe that's a good sign...who knows? I'll take as much peace and quiet as I can for the time being before the rat race begins again.

Monday, I have to go and drop off that paperwork to housing--while we wait on our new cap limits update.

Sky

OH YEAH...THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN!

2008-07-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

Status: In the middle of a housing crisis and not able to write on anything.

Doing: Taking a break from all this running around.

Watching: The $155 HD TV that I just bought in January (and died in April) is going to the trash heap. So don't bother even asking. I'm still pissed off about that! :0(

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 504.

TOPIC: PACKING'S A PAIN IN THE BUTT

Nevermind the fact that I wish I was a hamster, or some other avian-born creature right now.

But I feel like an overburdened mule with so much crap to pack up and move.

Tomorrow, we have to go back to Lynnwood and turn in our applications along with the first $70 of our credit check fees and then wait to see what happens afterwards.

Then we have to go back to housing and give them the notice that our management conveniently neglected to give to Section 8 on Monday.

My question is: Do I hold onto the $87 needed for the other 4 credit checks (these are for low-income housing--but still expensive nonetheless), or I do I just go about my normal business and pay my bills and my next editing fee installment?

Well...I have to pay Linda more for The Starchild. Even if I don't get it published, I'm still going to get it edited and ready for the time when I can get it ready.

Of course, I'll be like 46-years-old when this book comes out.

If I sound cynical--it's because this is just what happens when the rug gets pulled out from underneath me unexpectedly.

It turns out that the management did not want to negotiate for a lower rent price by a measley $20. They were asking for $970 and the housing people wanted $950. But like I said before? This place isn't worth even half that amount. I'd say...roughly...$600 minimum for this 2-bedroom unit.

I've seen better units and believe me...they are worth the $900. But they also have other amenities and other stuff.

This complex doesn't even have a pool. Not even a weight-room.

So how can they justify such a dramatic rent increase in the past several years?

Simple:

They simply chalk it up to market prices and set things accordingly.

But this complex isn't worth that much money. They tried selling this enterprise for $7.2 million a few years ago. Some poor schmuck must've bought it--because we have new management; for the umpteenth time in the past 8 years.

But instead of improving the surrounding areas and giving each unit a major face lift (instead of a simple paint over and some cheap-looking countertops to cover up the neglect that this place had to endure for years on end...?) and some real-time amenities, they just continued the same lack of good maintenance and low-bidding to the cheapest contractor or other business outlets which my wife and I have seen come and go since 2000. (How do you explain the reason behind us waiting 3 years for new window screens?)

If I had the fucking money and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted...?

I WOULD'VE RAZED THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND--BULLDOZED EVERYTHING--AND STARTED THE HELL OVER!!!

If I'm going to be charging people $900+ a month, I'm going to give them their money's worth and then some!

This cheap-assed crap of an apartment complex is only supposed to be a Wal-Mart speciality! What the hell are they doing competing with a corporation that likes to pay their workers substandard wages and secretly employs illegal immigrants from Mexico?

THAT'S PLAGIARISM! LOL

Sky

POOPED BEYOND BELIEF

2008-07-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

Status: In the middle of a housing crisis and not able to write on anything.

Doing: Taking a break from all this running around.

Watching: The $155 HD TV that I just bought is going to the trash heap. So don't bother even asking. I'm still pissed off about that! :0(

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 504.

TOPIC: ROB A BANK OR PULL $20s FROM MY ASS--WHICH IS MORE REALISTIC FOR YOU?

The past couple of days have been hell. Pardon my lack of courtesies or manners here for the last week--but this may be the last bunch of entries anyone here will probably read from me for a good long while.

I don't wish to brood over my own fate or that of my wife's, our beloved pets, our lifetime worth of pack-ratted shit or anything like that--but it's something I've always done since I can remember.

My life isn't grand or glorious. I don't have a nest egg to speak of, hell...I don't even have any savings worth bragging about.

Everything I have given to me or received has been spent on either survival or some immediate emergency that needed to be taken care of.

But I'm finding that despite everything I've tried to do, I am simply outclassed by a lack of serious money.

I don't have near enough to start over in case things go sour--like they have just recently.

In order for me to get back into a new apartment--these days--I would need anywhere between $4000 and $6000. (First/last month's rent, security deposit, pet deposits, credit check, and holding money for the apartment itself.)

And this isn't something I just made up to scare people. Or impress you.

The facts are: Apartments aren't getting any cheaper. Any pets you have with you will cost you twice as much in deposits down the line--and dumping them out on the streets--just because life inconveniences you--isn't the answer either.

I don't care what people say about animals. Dogs and cats are people too!

Do we do the same with our kids when life throws us a bitter lemon?

I found out today that in order for me to seriously put in some applications, I would have spend more than $200 in credit checks; more than I actually have on hand.

Yes, you may find this to be bitching, but what am I supposed to do? I only have $311 in pocket after I pay out for my portion of the rent.

And I can only do this once per month. Which doesn't give me a whole hell of a lot of time to go fucking around for the next 8 weeks and pretend that everything will be okay.

I don't live in La La Land like President Bush and John McCain do; with their wild assertions that drilling for that meager 3% will automatically wean us off our addiction to foreign oil. (Because it won't.)

MY REALITY will always be based in one intractable facet of life: POVERTY.

I won't know the lap of luxury. I won't see my bank account explode into the realm of avarice. I'm not even sure how well my books will do--if I can get out of this indelible mouse trap which life has put me in.

All I'm asking for is 4 years of good luck, no interruptions, no surprises, and nothing else.

But I've also got the security deposit to worry about. And that's going to wrack me up $600, and the regular one is $300+. The $3000 pet deposit is going to kill me either way. Even if I was allowed to make payments, I'm not sure how they would break it down. I only have so much to play with.

And I still need to pay my editing fees--which is a necessity--not a choice. Because unlike some plebe writers whom want to have their work done for free, I know that the majority editors whom work for a living would strongly disagree with that premise.

They need money in order to survive. I need their services in order to sell a pretty awesome novel.

But I'm pretty pooped and exhausted today. Walking around did me in, but also this worry and anxiety did as well.

I wish I could say that there was some way I could solve this problem easily, but the fact is, there is no way that I can think of.

Sky

THE CLOCK IS NOW TICKING...

2008-07-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Status: On page 1,700 of The Price of Freedom.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 464. (Sorry! I read more than I first thought! lol)

TOPIC: NO BREAKS FOR THIS STRUGGLING WRITER--BUT SHOULD I BE ALL THAT SURPRISED?

I hate this! But what else can I do?

The city of Everett has it out for the poor and the disabled.

Namely me.

In 2 months--by October 1st--both my wife and I will be out of a house and home.

We knew this was coming 2 years in advance and still we couldn't do anything. When you live on such severely limited income as I do--you can't plan ahead, nor can you save any sufficient funds for that "rainy day".

All you can do is live in fear each and every day and wonder if you'll have a roof over your head the next.

This morning, we got a notice from the management that housing has denied us our next year's voucher based on the fact that it couldn't accept another rent increase--and so we have 2 months to find other suitable housing.

The only problem is is that the asking prices for most rents start at $800 for one-bedrooms and almost $1000 now for 2-bedroom apartments. (They wanted $962 for the coming lease year (2009), while last year we were paying an increased $862 a month in rent. Which would've sucked out another $140 on top of the $226 I already owe for my portion of the rent. (I found out from my wife what they were really wanting. Our housing coordinator must've gotten the earlier number wrong by mistake.))

I only have $537. And even if either me or April were working, we still wouldn't have enough to make basic ends meet. 95% of our last paychecks went to rent alone the last time we worked in 2000 and 2001.

And rent back then was much cheaper than it is now.

If we cannot secure a place by October 1st of this year, it's going to mean abrupt end to my publishing ambitions and everything else that I've labored hard over for the last decade.

I can't tell you when I will be able to resume my writing, but it's safe to say that The Starchild won't be published at all until at least 2020 or later--instead of 2011 or 2012. (As I had hoped.)

For this, I'm sorry. But life hasn't been easy for me and I've had to swallow my share of setbacks more than once.

This one's just another bitter pill that I have to take--because there is no avoiding what will happen to both my wife and I over the next several years at most.

I'm not angry--though I should be. I should be pissed and spewing hot lava from my guts. But I'm just oddly depressed at having to lose everything all at once and not being able to do anything about it.

Maybe I'm just finally glad it's over and I can move onto whatever else is going to be presented to us--minus what few creature comforts that we have to ourselves.

Our stuff is going into storage, but the fate of our animals is uncertain. Due to the fact that so many people have abandoned their pets after losing their homes to foreclosures--with animal and kill shelters are underfunded and overmaxed...?

There's really nothing we can do.

If there is a slim chance that we can squeak our way out of this mess, it's this: There's a small possibility that we can "port" our voucher from one housing agency to the next--and allow us to live in a much smaller one-bedroom.

If for one more year.

The only trouble is, I don't have the $325 needed for the transfer fee. Now...there is another possibility that the management will be gracious enough to let us make monthly payments while we live there, but we're not betting the farm on that happening.

If this doesn't work, and we aren't successful in finding a place in 8 weeks, I just want everyone to know that I didn't go down without a fight.

I've done everything humanly possible and nothing worked.

As for my writing--it's a moot point. I'm going to try and finish Starchild Duel and at least one chapter of Stories of the Dead Earth--to leave off where I need to go to next whenever (and if) I resume writing.

This could be many years down the road--so I just want you all to know this.

But I won't have any definite idea on when I'll be back to write and share more on my cool writing and other book projects.

Sky

RECONSTRUCTION BLUES

2008-07-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

Status: Rewriting the last six chapters to Starchild Duel. (Some kinks)

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 424.

TOPIC: THE TRADITION CONTINUES. :0)

I'm in the middle of reconstructing a part of my Starchild Duel novel (taking a minor break from A Girl Named Mystery) and fighting with a medical supply store over my prescription for compression stockings.

On the book front, it seems as though I might've goobered just a bit on a couple of the story elements and made total hash browns of the continuity of the storyline up to this point--but like I've indicated in the past--? The same thing happened with The Starchild--where I had to go and rip out 200 pages and start over from scratch.

I did some rewriting and rewiring of a few chapters; glued some things together and rearranging other aspects of the last 30 pages today.

Everything reads the way it should--from my perspective--but I had the order all wrong it turns out.

So instead of some major writing today and yesterday, I spent the last couple of days reworking everything around.

I still have some things to iron out and I redid the title from "Dark Despair" to "Catch the Flag". (Anyone who is familiar with this term will know what I mean when they read this section of the book. What it boils down is that the Praetorial Guard is on full alert after the near-destruction of Shark's Bay; and everyone involved: Talia and Isis McGowan, Bayen--plus Nemesis--are on everyone's shit list for certain.

The last 5 years has given the PG some impressive countermeasures to deal with both the Starchild and Nemesis--hence the section title.)

However, this looks like it will be something of a tradition with each book following the last. lol

But this "glitch" happened around 272,000 words--and so I also deep-sixed the last 30,000 as well. I was hovering around 300,000 words, but the last 30K involving the final battle will have to be reworked again.

All because of the new introduction of Talia McGowan. Her enhanced presence threw the third draft book into a whole new arena--so I've been spending the last 3 years or so working on the improved upgrades to the book.

But regardless of what people say about not writing sequels, this one's definitely going to just as good--if not better than the first.

Not because I'm trying to outdo The Starchild, but because this one was pre-planned six to eight years ago to be a royal cat fight that would make people like Danica Patrick jealous. :0P

My compression stockings issue cemented around my medical insurance. Apparently, having a monthly COUPON doesn't work with this one medical store and they expected me to have a card instead.

As I told the medical receptionist: "When they were talking about issuing everyone a card, they didn't issue me mine--three years ago. The way it went was, 'wait a couple more weeks' and see if you get yours. Well, it didn't turn out that way. 2 weeks became 2 more weeks, and then a month, then 2 months, and finally, the response I got was: 'Just keep using your coupon for the time being.' "

She then said: "Well, we can't use it because it'll just be a denial of service. We have to have a card to know who to bill."

I'm standing there thinking, "Didn't she just hear a WORD of what I just told her?"

When I tried to explain it to her again, she gave me the same line and added, "Until you find yours or get one--we can't help you."

Oooh yes...I just wanted to wring this woman's neck for being completely TONE-DEAF to what I was saying! lmao

Fortunately, my wife found me a black pair of stockings that was given to us 2 years ago.

These things are really tight--but an extra pair never hurts. :0)

I got a call yesterday--while I was out; that the problem was fixed and I could go back and get my stockings.

But I'm probably going to wait till Monday, because I have so much to do today. April's still nagging me about getting my glasses.

Sky

IRRITATING TO SAY THE LEAST

2008-07-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

At least not the scale I'm presently at.

Most of the responded answers centered on me not being able to tell a story at all--if it took 1200 pages (but the book still isn't done)...another responded by saying that I could easily tell the story in less than 600 pages.

Some suggested that I should break the book up (like I haven't already considered that), another poster said that in order for me to become published, I have to keep my word counts under 70,000 words--and I should use the latest writer's guide as proof of that. (I never got around to telling her that I passed the 70K mark years ago--and haven't bought a new writer's guide since 2001-2002; since dropping out of the mainstream hunt in 2006.)

One poster suggested that I immediately trim it down to a much lower word count; a couple suggested that I limit my use of words in the novel--so that it doesn't sound too wordy, and a third said that unless I was Stephen King, I wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting published that way.

But what shocked me was that there wasn't a SINGLE source of praise for even trying such a feat, no one that responded seemed all that inspired, and most were more focused on my chances of getting in on the graces of the big guns--rather than just being amazed by one writer's personal accomplishment.

Why this happened, I have no idea.

Not one responder had even asked me how I do it--because the few people I've conversed with over the years seemed less interested in how I did it and more obsessed with how I'm going to get a book of that magnitude PUBLISHED.

Which made me think that nobody--outside of a few--really are all that concerned with personal achievements, but are more focused on the monetary and material wealth they could acquire through traditional publishing.

A sad mental state of events--if you ask me.

The other thing is that's been bugging me?

I really WISH people would stop trying to lump me in the same bracket as Stephen King--by using him as a weapon against me!

I don't really care much for him, and he's not what I would call all that "inspirational" for me either. He's a horror author, not a sci-fi buff.

I did not grow up reading any of his books. I still haven't--even though I have a few of his tomes in my collection collecting dust. (Along with everything else of mine.)

It would be like asking a plumber for wedding advice when you should instead go to a certified wedding planner and see what they can do about that jacuzzi.

Y'know?

The only thing that King and I have in common is our coke-bottle glasses and our really bad hair cuts.

From my standpoint, it just doesn't seem accurate enough for me. King's ancient now. Out of date. He had his time in the limelight.

Having someone say: "Well, you're not King--so you're not going to get published"--just makes me think I'm either too inexperienced to be a successful writer, or that I am too old to even make such an attempt in the first place.

But like I went off in my blog on Friday: "I'm not them and they aren't me."

I don't judge my literary feats and accomplishments against someone whose standard isn't even remotely compatible with mine--let alone based solely on monetary gain and...um...what's the word I'm looking for here...?

SOCIAL STATUS.

Secondly? I'm not a robot! I'm not pre-programmed to do *anything* I don't want to do!

Writing for me is a PLEASURE. It's a cross that I alone have to bear. But it's a burden that I carry proudly within me because it makes me who I am--not who I should be in the eyes of society.

Why should I burn more bridges trying to live up to an impossible standard here?

We all write according to our natural gifts--not by someone else's.

I've done all I can with my books. I've tried to be as objective as I can--to take things out, to trim down a few unnecessary spots, but reality-check time?

The way I've written my books is a lot like a construction contractor mapping out the blueprints for the John F. Kennedy Space Center--for the first time.

You just can't use the same formula that was used in building...let's say...the Empire State Building back in 1934.

You have to do it differently than what was put into play decades earlier--based on an entirely different set of engineering principles. The Empire State Building is a natural lightning rod--designed to attract the strikes away from all the lower-end structures.

The Space Center is designed to withstand Category 3 hurricanes.

But you can't expect a writer of my caliber to simply go an adopt someone else's writing style and format because he or she is already published.

You have to look at what they are in before you can start to build a picture of what you want to do as a writer.

Me, I didn't have that blueprint. I didn't even have the tools I needed to become a writer.

Everything I learned came from READING. And that's all there ever was for me. I never once broached a famous author's style or writing format when I started out at the age of 14.

Again, I had no guide, no blueprint, NOTHING that could prepare me for what lay ahead.

The only thing I did have was my command of reading, writing, and a little bit of grammar, along with my English studies.

But I also had science, biology, math, geology, physics, basic engineering, world history, horticulture, social sciences, and a few other areas of expertise--including art and computer science.

This is what I drew up for my writing adventures. I was also heavily into current events, astronomy, meteorology, astrophysics, nature, politics, and some other areas of interest.

These many things is what formed the BACKBONE of my writing career. It wasn't proper writing, adjectives, nouns, pronouns, etc, etc, etc..and proper English writing and communication skills, expert character development--which started me.

I had none of those things growing up. Not one class. Not one lecture. Not one visit by a famous author or a convention.

My situation was so unique growing up, I can honestly say I actually did lead an isolated life. And that life has stayed with me this entire time.

The only things that kept me connected to the outside world was the TV and the library. But I never got into writing all that much. I was too busy being a kid--than wanting to be a famous poet like Robert Frost (I lived in Vermont for 14 years growing up) or anyone else whom was a well-known writer and author.

My mother said that I was her little scientist when I was a boy. It was a phrase that stuck with me. Because I was a man of science--of everything around me.

What I couldn't learn in a classroom--I could find out in the real world. Y'know?

So, when I began to become a writer, all I had was what I had learned thus far in school, but the basic mechanics of writing ITSELF was not even available to me for the entire time I was in the public school system.

Even private school lacked the resources. We had no classes, nothing that could prepare me for what lay ahead. So I literally had to learn everything on my own, through the use of books and my love of the things I most enjoyed.

THEY were my teachers. Not anyone else. Not even Stephen King himself. I didn't hear about him until the early-90s--when his books started to get popular with the masses.

But even then, I never paid that much attention to what he was doing--other than the fact that he was published. Things like this...just never entered my mind. I was so fixated on my own problems and other issues; to really worry about what my own path as a writer was doing to me, or where it was going to lead me.

So, I had no experience, no classes, no nothing. Just books and some of my favorite novels that I liked to read--which got me started on some fan-fiction of my own.

But barriers for me were painful to break--even overcome. I didn't get started in my writing career--seriously--until my mid-20s.

Even then--it was hard enough to just overcome the problems of wanting to become a respectable writer; let alone get published.

Where I was at that time, I still didn't have access to classes, courses, conventions--even as my brothers filled me in on going to a STAR TREK convention in 1994 and meeting Mark Lenard (Sarek).

But writing was something I still had to do on my own. It took me 5 years afterwards to break 100,000 words. I hit the 200,000 barrier in 2001-02.

The 300,000 word count barrier was broken only 4 years ago. And what I've written didn't seem all that wordy or long to me at all. Just layers upon layers of carefully constructed story plot elements, subplots, and one large storyline from start to finish.

And despite my best efforts to protect what I've gone and created, I still have people trying to rip it asunder by telling me that it'll never fly, it'll never sell, and I won't get published because I'm not somebody famous.

All they want to do is destroy something that they can't understand.

Why do we base such importance on these little things? Nobody I know writes 300,000 word books. Not even 200,000.

The most I've heard people tell me these days is between 100K and120K. And that's maximum for them.

Mmph.

Honestly, I feel like such a fish out of water--when measured up against my fellow writers--not PEOPLE whom have been published before, but just persons whom are like me.

Still, I often wonder if I'm the only one whom is chasing this impossible dream of mine.

Not getting published, but writing that Great American Novel that will one day stand for something special.

I've tried to do things that would set me apart from everyone else. But overall, it's always been something that came natural: Being different. Acting different. Doing things differently.

And like all things 25 years ago--I still find that people today still harbor the same unintended malice towards those whom don't fit into today's everchanging social network.

Maybe it isn't me, maybe it's them--I don't really know.

But everytime I look out into the world, I see things so differently than others. Everything just reads along a different evolutionary path of reason and possibility--than what we normally come to understand it as.

I wonder if that has something to do with how my brain rewired itself--shortly after I was born with cerebral palsy. Everything had to be saved differently in order to function to some varying degree.

As such, I haven't been able to see things like other people do. No matter how hard I try, I'm always looking for that one unexplainable glitch, that unexplained variable no one else can see but me.

And the way I write is based on the same principle. I don't operate under the same rules and guidelines as others do. It's not resistance to a set idea or standards, but just something that says: "Nothing's on upstairs."

Or: "Nobody's home; can I take a message?"

There's a quiet lack of comprehension going on. I just can't grasp at times the enormity or the complexity of some things, so I just try to make it as simple for myself as I possibly can--and work my way through as I go.

No matter what I do though, I just can't convince the world that I have something worth contributing to the larger whole.

But it never stops me from trying nonetheless.

Sky

ONCE MORE FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED...

2008-07-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Status: Writing on A Girl Named Mystery. (2nd draft--2008 version.) Chapter 3.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Disturb's "10,000 Fists"-CD

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 414.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

STAR TREK-NEW EARTH: BOOK 5 OF 6-THIN AIR. Page 45.

TOPIC: READ MY LIPS: I...AM...NOT...LIM~IT~ING MYSELF!

Some of you on Yahoo! Answers think that I should limit myself in my writing because I'm not published.

Some of you think that I should try to tell a story in about 200 pages or less.

Some of you think that I should cap my word count usage between 70,000 and 80,000 words.

Some of you think that just because I'm not Stephen King, then I'm not good enough for the likes of you.

Well, I have some breaking news that just came in over the wires a short while ago:

I AM NOT A ROBOT!!!

YOU PEOPLE WANT TO DO THESE BOOKS YOUR WAY--?

THEN YOU COME OVER TO MY PLACE ON 112TH STREET IN EVERETT, WASHINGTON--AND I WILL GLADLY TURN OVER MY REBUILT PC; AND LET YOU UNQUALIFIED TURKEYS TAKE A SPIN AT WHAT YOU WOULD CONSIDER "GOOD WRITING"!

GO AHEAD!

TRY TO TACKLE MY MULTIPLE SUBPLOTS AND STORYLINES AND SEE IF YOU CAN SQUEEZE SOMETHING THE SIZE OF THE FUCKING TITANIC INTO THE DIMENSIONAL SPACE OF A COUNTERTOP BREAD BOX EVERY DAY!

I DARE YOU!

IF YOU CAN'T, THEN STOP TRYING TO LIMIT ME!

THESE ARE MY BOOKS AND I WILL WRITE THEM HOWEVER I SEE FIT!

STOP TRYING TO GET ME TO FOLLOW THE CROWD AND ALLOW ME THE LUXURY OF CHARTING MY OWN COURSE IN LIFE WITH MY WRITING!

I PEN LARGE BOOKS ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I LIKE THE CHALLENGE--NOT SO I CAN LIMIT MYSELF.

IF COMPARING ME TO OTHER AUTHORS IN THE PAST IS THE BEST YOU PEOPLE CAN COME UP--THEN I HAVE A NEWS FLASH:

THEY AREN'T ME. I AM NOT THEM! I DID NOT GROW UP IDOLIZING ANYBODY!

I GREW UP ON MY OWN, I WROTE ON MY OWN, AND I AM DAMNED PROUD OF MY OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

AND I DID IT ALL WITHOUT HAVING SOMEONE LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER, HOLDING MY HAND, MEETING ME HALF-WAY, OR DOING ALL THE WORK THEMSELVES.

THAT IS THE SIGN OF A TRUE AND TRIED WRITER WHO DOESN'T WRITE FOR MONEY, DOESN'T WRITE FOR THE FAME, COULD CARE LESS ABOUT FORTUNE, NAME RECOGNITION, AND ALL THE HOLLYWOOD GLITZ AND GLAMOUR THAT MOST WRITERS THESE DAYS OBSESS THEMSELVES OVER CONSTANTLY ON A DAILY BASIS.

IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY BLISTERING WORDS, THEN YOU'RE DEFINITELY IN THE WRONG BUSINESS!

THIS MESSAGE IS JUST A REMINDER THAT WHEN PEOPLE START PUSHING ME AROUND, I PUSH BACK TWICE AS HARD.

I AM NOT AFRAID. I WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN TO MY LAST BREATH IF NEED BE.

THAT IS HOW DEDICATED AND PASSIONATE I AM ABOUT WHAT I DO AS A MUSE AND SCRIBE.

BECAUSE I AM NOT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. AND I PLAN TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.

IF YOU STILL HAVE ANY FUTURE PROBLEMS WITH ME OR MY BIG BOOKS, PLEASE DROP A NOTE OFF INTO THE SUGGESTIONS BOX AND ME OR MY MANAGEMENT STAFF WILL GET BACK TO YOU AT OUR CONVENIENCE.

THANK YOU AND HAVE A GREAT NIGHT!

Schuyler Rahwn Thorpe

MORE OF THE SAME TODAY

2008-07-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Status: Writing on A Girl Named Mystery. (2nd draft--2008 version.) Chapter 2.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Taped music: "Beloved"--By VNV Nation; "Consumer" and "Shelter"--By Icon of Coil

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 414.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

STAR TREK-NEW EARTH: BOOK 5 OF 6-THIN AIR. Page 45.

TOPIC: AND THE BEAT GOES ON...

I feel like this right now. After spending last night with my legs elevated from edema and water retention--today, I feel like I want to do something, but I'm not sure if it's writing-related.

To be sure, I want to write, but where am I going to find the energy? Everything just feels so apathetic and dead to me right now.

So I'm just going to take it easy and see what comes next.

(And no: It does not mean that I've lost either my touch or my edge. I just have some days where I'm not feeling like Mighty Mouse anymore--and need to recharge my batteries again.)

Sky

HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT. :0)

2008-07-16T18:48:00.001-07:00

Status: Writing on A Girl Named Mystery. (2nd draft--2008 version.)

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Taped music.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 414.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

STAR TREK-NEW EARTH: BOOK 5 OF 6-THIN AIR. Page 45.

TOPIC: GARFIELD SUMS UP HOW I FEEL...AGAIN. :0)

This week has been nuts again. I'm going to jump off the main writing track for a bit and focus on some of my smaller novel projects--and give my larger tomes a breather.

But lately, I've been feeling pretty lethargic on a lot of things--much like Garfield is in this comic strip.

I dunno. It could be the heat, the hot weather, my latest gardening attempts going bust again. (The pots were nothing but MUD! So I had to repot my backup seeds into egg-flats. I'll have to get some large tomato seeds next month and a few other fruits and veggies.)

But I'm going to be meandering for awhile.

Sky

STARCHILD DUEL UPDATE

2008-07-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Status: Doing some writing on Starchild Duel. Chapter 147.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: "I Walk The Line"--By Alien Sex Fiend; "Database"--by PTI; "Recoil"--by Fleshfield

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 404.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

STAR TREK-NEW EARTH: BOOK 5 OF 6-THIN AIR. Page 45.

TOPIC: BOOK UPDATE!

I just want to let everyone know that I've begun writing in earnest once more on Starchild Duel. I think I'm a little bit more emotionally stable to continue writing--until I get word on the outcome of my hearing.

Don't blame me. This is how I've always been.

I've spent last night working on Chapter 147 of the book and then revising it until about 2:45 in the morning.

The title for this section of the book (on page 1,304) is called "Dark Despair"; drawing on the theme of failure and hopelessness wrought forth by the latest battle between Talia and Isis McGowan, and Cara Hastings (under the thrall of Nemesis).

None of the involved parties were able to claim a solid victory over the other (as Isis and Talia have teamed up against Cara to stop her destructive rampage)--and a good portion of Shark's Bay has been left in ruins as a result of the battle. (Isis's Viper X-1 auto-frame is now a memory.)

The race track where the Desert Storm was supposed to have played out was completely destroyed in the fight--and a lot of people and auto-frame pilots were killed in the process.

The primary players have retreated for the moment; each licking their respective wounds from the ongoing conflict.

Talia has finally relented to go back to Jonas's underground auto-frame hanger to find Jonas himself--at the request of his current girlfriend, Sara Braihteen. (Jonas likely filed for divorce against his estranged wife--Rayna Hastings--5 years previous. But there is nothing on what happened between the events surrounding The Starchild and Starchild Duel.)

But the 16-year-old stranded super heroine from the alternate universe is none too happy about doing this.

However, she has no other choice in the matter. With her sister (the other Isis McGowan) dead from wounds suffered at the hands of Nemesis on her world, the girl is literally on her own, and is still struggling to adapt and change to the universe she now lives in.

Isis McGowan is still out cold from being subjected to absolute zero temperatures elicited on top of a 5-mile free fall (after being cocooned in a block of ice) expose--and it doesn't like she's going to be much help to anyone presently, until she has time to recover from a combination of steep exhaustion and her sustained injuries in her fight against Nemesis.

Pulver has taken Bayen prisoner where he's going to be tortured and interrogated by the Praetorial Guard--while the rest of the rescued party returns to Fran's workshop to plan for his release--and any ideas on how to confront and contain Nemesis's destructive onslaught against the surface dwellers residing on the desert Earth.

Or the population of sky dancers living on the orbiting space complex of Stratos City itself.

But--as before--none of the ideas look doable or even the least bit attractive.

So...no immediate resolution to the problems at hand. (But you don't think that I don't have my own bag of tricks up my sleeve--now do you? lol

Trust me: I've been in tighter spots than this--with my writing. It's all a part of the job-description.)

WHAT'S SO WRONG ABOUT WANTING TO BE DIFFERENT?

2008-06-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Status: On vacation till the end of the month due to a lot going on.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: "In Winter; Pain"--by Kittie

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 404.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

TOPIC: YOU JUST GOTTA BE YOURSELF. NO ONE CAN BE THAT FOR YOU.

It's funny how some people react so negatively to an idea.

I thought it would be beneficial if I had posted my publishing ideas and plans on one of these writers' sites--which is dealing with the fallout from NCP, and all I got was from the majority: "If I had a publisher like that, I'd take my pocketbook and run."

Run to where--exactly? To someone else that doesn't appreciate you or your work? Someone whom doesn't pay you for what you're actually worth? Just where do you plan on taking your money to? Hmm?

Anyone want to answer me that one?

How about taking your works to a publisher that understands the writer? The art of a good book? What will connect the reader to such books in the first place? That will cause these newfound readers to come back wanting more--because they are of a different fare than those seen in commercial bookstores?

How about a publisher that treats their clients like assets instead of commercial liabilities?

Or publishers that treat their first-time clients like crap?

It makes me wonder just how different most publishers are from the ones that go out and deliberately try to schnooker their way onto an unsuspecting writer; steal away their rights (and their money)--and don't give nothing back?

Or the ones that give so little to that first-time author to start out with--but in turn, heavily FAVOR their top 1% with everything but the kitchen sink?

And I in turn get shot down because I want to be a different writer and future publisher?

It's not like the same model of writing success has been equally applied to each and every writer/author which has traveled down the pike in the last hundred years or so.

The same thing can be applied with a business model.

Outside of the basics, you could run it however you see fit. But from what I gathered, so many writers are still fixated on nothing but the money; acting like my stance is something of a pariah against whatever they've been taught to believe in.

Y'know?

Personally, I don't find anything wrong with what I want to do.

Being different, acting differently, is not a weakness or a business liability. But not many people see that as something they can live with.

Pretty much why so many McCain supporters and other GOP trolls are so terrified of Obama on Yahoo! Answers: They can't take the chance of everything that's worked for them (and not everyone else) going down the drain or stopping entirely--in order to favor the struggling American man, woman, or child.

Much like my openly transparent publishing ambitions. Y'know? I want to try something different that hasn't been tried before. Instead of focusing on pure profit, how about focusing on the writer and the book in question?

Oh, no!...we can't have that, now can we, people?

Nope.

Everything has to follow the same failed capitalistic model of greed, power, and most importantly...? MONEY.

Screw personal endeavors.

Screw personal ambitions.

Screw delivering a well-made product.

Screw even the guy who had made it or fashioned it with his own blood, sweat, and tears.

Just focus on the business side of the model and fuck everything else along the way!

And people keep wondering why nothing in made in America anymore?Because we've outsourced all our damned ambition, hard-work ethics, and DRIVE--to places like China and India for cheap-on-the-fly business ethics!

PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE WORKER. PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM!

And people think I'm nuts for wanting to do things differently?

Maybe it's because I'm tired of seeing things the way they are and want to affect a little change for the common good!

Has anyone figured that out yet? Do I need to keep spelling it out until it finally sinks into those thick heads of theirs?

I DON'T FUCKING CARE ABOUT THE MONEY!!! IT'S NOT GOING TO DO ANY OF US ANY GOOD ONCE WE ARE DEAD!!!

HELL~O PEOPLE!

FOCUS!!!

If none of us can accomplish anything in our miserable begotten lives--what the fuck difference does it matter if we aren't able to get our hands on all that wealth, fame, and name-recognition in the first place?!?

What is so damned scary about doing things differently?

Did we all just fall off the highest branch of the tallest stupid tree in existance--and declare that ambition is no longer a necessity in our shortened lifespans?

But I look at the common writer and all I see is greed from those whom don't care about whether or not their books sell or not. For those few of us who are bucking the tend--I implore you to keep doing it.

Because one of these days, I'm going to come after you and sign your butts up.

***

I realize that having money is important, but what few writers (and some published authors) don't seem to realize is that if you don't have a good book (preferably one that connects to the reader), how is that "it's all about the money"-ideal going to help you when you can't even break even in book sales after you get published; because either your book--or book sales--sucked so bad from the start?

See, this is the dark reality the majority still doesn't want to face. They think if they can get TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED, everything will still be hunky-dorey F-I-N-E. (Or as my wife calls it: "Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.")

Wish that were true, peeps! But...reality can be such a bitch sometimes, y'know?

Granted, I probably won't make enough for a down payment on a beat-up looking Gremlin--but at least I didn't go the same route as the rest of us struggling eggheads; by dumping all my hopes and dreams on traditional publishing and stubbornly believing that is where the big bucks lie.

(Because I already went and did that. Nearly 10 years wasted trying to beat my head against that unmoveable brick wall. After which I said: "Enough of this shit. Let's try something else.")

So to those who want to continue to shoot me down on what I want to do?

AT LEAST I'M DOING SOMETHING THAT WON'T BE CONSIDERED A CONSTANT EXERCISE IN UTTER FUTILITY.

I'm getting something out of this. A real life-learning, life-changing, experience.

That is what I apply to my books. To all of my characters. To every world I have built in the last 20+ years.

And if society in general can't understand that? Well, then, that's their loss.

Not mine.

Sky

SUCCESS SHOULDN'T BE A ONE-SIDED COIN

2008-06-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Status: On vacation till the end of the month due to a lot going on.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Nothing at the moment.

Listening to: Taped music from C-89.5 (Seattle): "Military Fashion Show"--by And One; "Dead Enough For Life"--by Icon of Coil; "Paper Angels"--by Punta Aga

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 404.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 78.

TOPIC: THE FEW THINGS NOT BEING TAUGHT BY THE MAINSTREAM

In a recent debate of minds with a fellow writera and author over the issue of NCP screwing its authors out of their livelihood--hook, line, and bad stinker!--I posted some things about the relationship between the publisher and the author; and what they should do to ensure that success befalls them both--and not become a one-sided love affair that enriches one lover while spurning the other.

True, I'm always preaching to the choir over matters when it comes to things like business, fame, money, and name-recognition.

But it's always good to try and keep engaging the internet community whenever I can. :0)

***

Sara:

I know that. All I’m saying, is I’m going to try something different with what I want to do. There’s nothing wrong with being a dreamer.

At least I can sit here and say: “I have a vision. I have a dream.”

Most people don’t have them anymore. Everybody is seen struggling to make ends meet–and it’s just…disheartening. To say the least. People have stopped dreaming--for the most part--because their lives have left them feeling empty and without a reason to keep reaching for something special.

Myself? I’ve never had a shortage of ideas, dreams, and what have you. But practicality-wise? Things are a bit more challenging in real life than they are on the surface.

But it doesn’t stop me from trying anyway. It’s what has made my endeavors so interesting.

I get a lot of people telling me: “It can’t be done.”

And I say: “Why not?” And that’s where I have them.

Because no one thinks outside the box. We are so consumed with our linear existances, we never stop to imagine if things can be done differently–apart from the conventional and traditional business models.

You know? Mix things up. Add a little spice to our lives. Shake the tree and see what falls.

But given the odds that very few authors make that establishment of money in the long-term, there’s no real harm in trying what I’ve just discussed and shared.

People tell me: “Sky: You’re nuts.”

And I’m like: “Yeah? So tell me something I don’t already know.”

In order to survive, we have to be a little crazy. I’m sure Nora Roberts and authors like her thought along the same way–once or twice–when they started out writing.

Everyone has to start somewhere. We can’t go on being afraid of our shadows or the unknown every time we come across something we know little about.

That’s what I keep trying to impress upon people.

We’re too terrified a nation to even embrace the possibilities–we are always going back to what’s already been a broken-down system which offers little in return.

But seeing how so many people are being taken advantage of by their publishers or agents (even editors), I’m just going to draw up a simple contract that addresses the rights of the author in regards to the company, and make it pointedly clear that if something were to happen to myself or the company falls on hard times–the rights revert back to the author and any royalties earned for that year shall be paid to that author without delay.

No questions asked. NOTHING to hinder or impede the author. I don’t like dealing with courts and I’m certain that the authors don’t either.

I look at what’s happening here and it just infuriates me that there are some publishers whom just don’t give one whit about author rights and contractual obligations.

I want to change that perception. That’s one of my goals as an aspiring publisher. I don’t think that’s so wrong, is it?

But I won’t sit there in my chair, and pull the same crap over and over again–that NCP and others have–because they can, because they have the money and the power, and because (like I’ve read from Ellen Ashe’s blog entries), these “fakes” think that authors don’t have any real authority to challenge them on the matter in question.

I believe that in order for a publisher to be successful, they have to work with their respective clients, address any problems forthwith, and have a good line of communication open.

I’ve seen how divided this nation has become. One side against the other. Neither one wanting to budge because either side stringently believes that they are in the right.

With this…? The publisher and the author each have their respective obligations. Their respective duties. One publishes the book, one writes the book.

But…

They can work together also, they can bridge the gap of any differences or any problems which often pop up–from time to time.

But it can’t be one-sided–as it has been: Where the publisher leaves the author hanging with little or no “tech support” to help them with getting onboard and going strong–once their book is published.

Nowadays, the top 1% of published (established) authors get most of the lion’s share of the help and the newbies just get screwed, blued, and tatooed.

How fair is that? Does that do anything for the author–let alone the publisher? We all know that advertising and publishing costs are going to infinity and beyond (to coin a phrase), but should that mean that the publisher deep-sixes their new acquisition because times may be tough; and they can only spare enough time, effort, and money for their more priviledged few clientele?

I don’t think so.

But that’s what is happening, Sara. How many of us first-time authors have made a healthy living from our books in recent years? I can’t remember a single one myself. Every new book comes and goes, and very few fresh faces are tagged for a follow up novel.

The success rates for first-time authors is horrendous. Which is why I’ve been pushing for more cooperation between the author and the publisher. Make it mutually beneficial for both parties, so that the pair can win in the end.

We have to get more involved if we are going to survive.

Both sides have to get creative and start thinking about what they want to do, what they want to accomplish, and find a way to get there together.

That’s what brings in the money! All this yo-yoing around from one author to the next is just creating unneccessary expenditures for the publisher in question.

And not so much profit towards the end. And while the publisher may--more or less--survive the experience, the majority of authors burned by such dealings (or relationships) do not.

Even in economic tough times such as this one, both parties can still find ways to work together–instead of being driven apart solely on one issue or the next.

This is a team effort after all. Or am I wrong on this?

What NCP is doing is taking a page from Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

Sky

THE BOOK EXCHANGE (Entry 2 of 3)

2008-06-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

Status: On vacation till the end of the month due to a lot going on.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Knight Rider on RTN.

Listening to: Taped music from C-89.5 (Seattle)

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 404.

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 69.

STAR TREK-NEW EARTH: BOOK 1: WAGON TRAIN TO THE STARS. Page 35.

TOPIC: INDEPENDENT BOOK STORE TRIALS

One of the things that I want to explore with The Starchild's release is to approach local and indi-run bookstores--instead of hitting one dead-end after another with the major chains.

Stores like Borders and B. Daltons which have pretty much popped up across the country like daisies.

Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to run into a very nice woman named Shelly DeWitt. What struck me about her was the fact that she was open-minded and easy going, and we had a lot to talk about over the course of the past few months or so.

Including our love of books.

Her aspiration was to open a small book store where she lived--and I saw a prime opportunity to try my luck with her in regards to my novel, The Starchild. (When it becomes available in a few years.)

Of course, we are both in uncharted territories here. Her business revolves around the idea of exchanging books or buying them based on price; while building up a saleable account with her store at the same time. (Click the link at the bottom of this page under "Sky's List Links"--for further details.)

My aims are to use her bookstore as a jump off point (amongst others) for my book--to see what kind of positive reaction I can get from my target audience and go from there.

So when Shelly recently e-mailed me, I found out that she had just opened her store this past month. And like myself, she's looking for potential customers and some good karma to come down her way.

So I thought I would give people whom visit this site of mine a heads up on her modest little enterprise--and see if anyone would be interested in exchanging a book or two in the process. (Pretty cool idea, huh?)

Because you never know what you might come across. Or read. :0)

So check her place out and spread the word if you can. We both would appreciate it!

Sky

NEW POLL AND PRICE CHANGES IN EFFECT. (Entry 1 of 3)

2008-06-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

Status: On vacation till the end of the month due to a lot going on.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: "Look Who's Coming To Dinner."--Battlestar Galactica on hulu.com.

Listening to: "Perpetual"--by VNV Nation; "The Darkness"--by Zombie Girl

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 404. (I blew through 100 pages during my recent 7-hour stay in the ER on the 18th.)

STAR TREK-THE NEXT GENERATION: WAR DRUMS. Page 69.

TOPIC: THE STARCHILD E-BOOK (PRICING OPTIONS)

Over the past several years, I've been dinking with the price payment options for The Starchild; trying to see what will work and what will be more effective.

Granted, most e-books will cost you so little in the pocketbook, but come on guys! lol

This is The Starchild we are talking about! A novel I hope to add to Amazon's Kindle device when it becomes available. (I figure: "What the hell"--right? You only live once.)

Two? This isn't a "shortie" or a "mini" novel that runs between 40-100 pages e-book-wise.

This is over 1,200 pages of intense action, intrigue, mystery, and all sorts of cool stuff going on. There is nothing boring about this book or its future companion novels at all.

This is me giving people their money's worth and then some. Aren't any of you the least bit tired of novels without substance, without depth, without strong and vivid characters, without anything that will make you recall with fondness about how much you even liked that book?

I hope to change that with this book of mine. My brainchild, my flagship novel, my baby.

I can't promise you the world, but I can guarantee that this book won't leave you disappointed one iota.

When I started The Starchild 12.5 years ago, it was based on a dream that I had which I could not explain nor understand in detail. Images like I was in a fog, trapped in some kind of interdimensional "interphase" of some kind--or surrounded by an energy field so vast that I thought I was floating in an expansive void without a beginning or end. I saw...people...dressed in some really exotic and elaborate costumes which I could only begin to comprehend, and voices that spoke to me like I was hearing God for the first time; which left me feeling small, insignificant, and humble.

And a sentence sprung out from the ether which said: "Write about us. Write about who we are. You are special." And it kept repeating for what seemed like ages.

I didn't tell my brother about this, because he would've thought I was nuts.

But it was a powerful enough vision that it got me "hooked" onto developing this unforeseen universe--which currently has no counterpart in today's commercially published books.

It took me awhile just to get a grasp of what I saw that night! And what was baffling, was that it wasn't influenced by anything I read, saw, or could read in books, papers, and even comics.

The whole experience...I could only compare it too seeing the image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast. A freak occurance which cannot be easily explained.

But how to write what was shown to me in that dream-vision of mine--? It just took a great deal of time just to figure out everything and come up with what I thought was a suitable universe fraught with an astounding array of characters, worlds, histories, and lores.

You would have to understand...that what I've written has been challenged and fought against because The Starchild and its companion novels aren't done by the...well...?

Book.

Commercially-published fiction is so limited in its own rights. Few books published these days can honestly say they've reached out and grabbed the imagination of that said reader--and be able to hold it without.

While there is some commercial potential with The Starchild, that's not what it was intended to become: An engine of perpetual commercialism designed to exploit a hard-fought and hard-written novel.

This book not only bends the rules of the industry, but it breaks them as well. Do you sometimes get annoyed when you simply "rush" through a book--and you find out there's nothing more? Not even a hint of things to come? Or when you buy certain books, they appear to be getting smaller and smaller as the years wear on?

The Starchild is the answer to these questions. There's nothing 'rushed' about the novel because of one important thing: The word count is 4 to 5 times longer than your average 'dimestore' novel.

That means that this book embodies the whole principle concept of a 'full-bodied' novel.

Why it took me so long to get this puppy right. When you're dealing with giant tomes such as mine (including The Price of Freedom), you can't just rush through the process of writing.

You have to delicately walk amongst the fragile flowers of your creation--and start laying down the groundwork for your characters, the settings, the world they'll inhabit, and overall...?

The powerfully moving plot that is sure to grab your reader and hold him or her in place.

You can't do that so well when you are restrained and limited to a certain word count.

If you want to make it as a respectable author and reputable writer, you have to start bending and breaking the rules these days. It's not grand or glorious, but if you want to be taken seriously with your work, then you will have to prove to your audience that you have what it takes to keep them turning the pages of your book.

Stop living the perpetuated lies of the industry. They aren't the least bit interested in the novels we writers write. All they want is money. But they don't take the necessary risks to broaden their horizons, fatten their bank accounts by leaps or bounds.

They are hopelessly stuck in the mindset of 'forward-backwards'. Going farther than their limited scope of imagination will allow is something foreign as well as alien to them.

Thusly, they limit themselves with their choice set of books--and in the end--? Don't reap the whirlwinds of profit.

They are stuck with an unsaleable novel which they believed would get them some suitable traction against their rivals or competitors--but got burned in the end.

The Starchild shatters those misconceptions. Here is a novel that tells of a story behind the resurgent legend behind the Starchild of Ancient Lore; and a 14-year-old girl struggling to hold herself together as the universe's newest guardian.

There's a lot to be said about imagination. And whether or not we all have that potential within ourselves: Our ability to go beyond our own limitations and start tripping the light fantastic in the process.

As much as I keep peddling this bit of advice and philosophy to the ears of the open-minded, there are still some whom are resistant to my approach. They still believe in an obsolete mechanism which can no longer promise them a stable career as a published author.

Or give them the lavish lifestyle they believe they are entitled to.

My choices in the matter came after years of trying and not getting anywhere as a result. I didn't see the point in constantly banging my head against the proverbial wall--so I moved on.

I hired an editor, I got a book cover artist, and now I'm trying the e-book route along with the standard limited print runs (to save on trees and the environment).

But the pricing issue didn't bug me at first because I thought I could attract more flies with honey if I kept things on the low-brow and affordable.

I know that you can set any price for an e-book, but as I've been finding out; the cost of everything is just going up, up, and up.

I had the original price set at $15 until I dropped it down to $7.50 a couple years ago; thinking that might be the ticket. I would've kept it that way, but to be honest? I won't make enough to sustain either myself, nor my wife--let alone afford the high costs of rent and health insurance we are both faced with nowadays.

So I started raising the price of the e-book slowly, and not many objected. I've been thinking about slowly ratcheting it up to maybe $12, possibly $13.50--but it depends on how things are going with the economy.

These changes won't take effect just yet. Maybe in 2 more years--I'll have to see.

Again, this isn't greed ruling my decisions, but the sad fact that we are living in a world that doesn't give one whit about people's state of affairs or personal finances.

I'll do what I can to keep things reasonable, but I also have to take into account my needs as well. I'm not looking to make a whole lot of money, but just enough to give me some much needed breathing space.

Which is why I'm not rushing the production and release of The Starchild too soon. I need to make sure that the book is close to perfect as it possibly can be, and that it will be worth it to my targeted readership in the years to come.

Oh, and if you have a chance? Take a moment to vote. Let me know what you think is reasonable.

Sky

RICH AND POOR DISPARITY INCLUDES PUBLISHERS AND WRITERS TOO!

2008-06-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

Status: On vacation.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: TV still offline.

Listening to: "String Theory"; Politics of Dancing 2 (2-disc CD compilation)

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 292.

STAR TREK: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD-BOOK 1. Page 206.

STAR TREK: DOCTOR'S ORDERS. Page 14.

TOPIC: THE DISPARITY BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR GETS WORSE

Ever wondered why you're not making it on 2 or 3 jobs these days? Why your level of income never seems to put you in the much vaunted middle-class or upper class of America?

Why even going to college doesn't seem to be making that much of a difference in your take home pay--after you get that new job you've been studying and training for?

It's because of politics, politicians, and the rich who control both.

Yes, that's right: The rich control the politicians. And therefore control the directional policy of our government and thus our country's direction. (Ever wonder why Halliburton has been making such a killing in Iraq these days? Why upwards of $50 billion of your tax monies have suddenly vanished without a trace--and no one in the government can figure out why? It's because the rich have been enriching (or "stealing") their way of out from underneath you during this whole conflict.)

The more money they have, the more control they have over people like you and me.

It's the reason why--in the last 30 years--worker productivity has exploded 76% and your level of income (or hourly wages held by 80% of today's working-class American) has only increased a paltry 2% during that time.

That's right kids: TWO PERCENT. IN 30 YEARS!!!

Why not the other way around? Why not an increase of 76% of our hourly wages included in that 76% of worker productivity?

I'll get to that in a second. But here's a startling fact for you to chew on:

Back in the 1950s, your parents grandparents were making roughly the equivalent of $9.88 an hour--thus being able to afford to move into suburbia America and buy that nice house and afford good healthcare.

Live the American Dream!

But today?

That doesn't exist anymore.

Today, corporations like McDonalds are still paying their workers $5.85/hr--for the last 11 years--while companies such as Wal-Mart can afford to pay every worker of theirs substandard wages and still get away with it...

Why?

Because they keep their prices low. That's how they are able to get away with this. And like McDonalds--make billions in profits.

But you would think that corporate companies like these would generously include the workers and give them a leg up for each million the company makes--thus increasing their hourly wages...?

Unfortunately, that's not how it works. While fat cat CEOs can get either their 'golden parachutes' in life or death--the average American worker is stuck at substandard wages for the rest of their lives; always dependent on the same companies which have been milking them for years of their hard-earned monies.

So while Bush conservatives and die-hard neocons can blame the Democrats and liberals for wanting a redistribution of America's wealth--through 'living wages' and universal healthcare--the truth is, they are also in the same boat as we are.

Reason why I am stuck at $535 a month on Social Security instead of $10,368 a year on Social Security. (If our wages were $27 per hour today instead of $5.35 or $8.01 in some states.)

Because of what's been called the 'gilded age'. Where the rich and wealthy control the manifest destinies of those beneath them--and continuously reap the benefits of their hard labor.

When someone works for a company, they aren't getting the full benefits of their hard work. The years of dedication and labor aren't paying off for them in terms of steady salary increases or giant bumps up in their hourly wages--but the guys above them--are the ones whom are benefiting the most!

This is the reason why our wages haven't increased at all in the last 30 years! Because of the way the 'gilded' system has been set up in America's workforce--to primarily benefit the rich and wealthy. (Why do you think the Republicans are so intent on keeping those tax cuts for the rich? Because the rich control them. And they have every reason to keep being generous to them--at the expense of everyone else.)

Everyone else gets to take a massive pay cut and zero benefits. Because it's all about keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer.

And at this very moment in our nation's history (2008), the gap between the rich and the poor is so systemic, it's reached a point where the divide between the two classes had last met prior to the Great Depression of the 30s.

Which means...?

We are very well looking at another depression because of the affluent rich's command and control of American policies. And through them...? The American workforce.

If we had high pay and excellent health benefits, the middle class would be as strong as it was now as it was back in the 50s--when your grandparents were getting paid a living wage.

Nobody would be suffering!

People like myself wouldn't have to be struggling to make ends meet on such a pittance of an income! But that's the way politics--and the rich--have arranged it for these past three decades.

It's what has kept 80% of working-class Americans from both the middle nd lower class rungs so poor and unable to make ends meet.

So while getting a good education is key to a higher-standard of living, don't hedge your bets too quickly that it will translate the same way once you get that job you've been wanting. Because 9 times out of 10, most of us won't get there at all.

We will still be struggling to make ends meet. To provide for our families--because politicians, policies, and the rich, have dictated that for us.

It's where they want us.

Why do you think so many first-time authors don't make it after being published? Why they are given such a pittance for an advance and thus expected to do everything for themselves?

Why do the majority of publishers cater so much to their rich client lists and not to the newbie whom just started out?

Because the rich control the value of those chips. They decide on what you should get and what you can do without as a published author for the mainstream industry.

They dictate on what you can and cannot write. Because it's all about the money.

It's the same everywhere you look. An inequality in both living and finding that all important American dream.

Because the rich and powerful control it all. And only the way we can ever hope to break that cycle is by taking the money that's been flowing into our politicians' hands all these years--and back into our own.

But the question remains: DO WE HAVE THE COURAGE TO STAND UP AND TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS? DO WE HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!'--AND TAKE BACK WHAT HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM US ALL???

Well...do you?

Sky

STRUGGLING WRITER HELPS COMPLETE STRANGER.

2008-06-06T21:22:00.001-07:00

Status: On vacation.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: TV still offline.

Listening to: "Go Zombie"; "Creepy Crawler" by Zombie Girl

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 288.

STAR TREK: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD-BOOK 1. Page 206.

TOPIC: POST OFFICE TRIP HAS A NICE ENDING FOR ONE GUY

With my hearing coming up on the 30th, I spent all day yesterday running around and getting copies of my medical records released for the ALJ--and keeping an eye doctor's appointment on time.

I also made a pit stop at the local post office too. It was there that I caught sight of some poor schmuck on the sidewalk with one of those cardboard signs announcing to the world how broke, homeless, and hungry he is.

Knowing the current state of the economy has everyone frazzled, I silently pitied the guy as I walked by to get that important errand done.

Since I wasn't carrying nothing but my debit card on me at the time--I thought about how much money I had on me. It wasn't much. I have so little after paying my rent (since I've been subsisting off of $537 for the last 8 months now)--that every dollar I have left to me is precious.

But seeing this guy the way he is...?

What the hell, right? You only live once. :0)

I knew from personal experience what being homeless is like. I've spent 14 months on the street during the mid-90s. It was no picnic, I can tell you that much.

So I went into the post office to get my business done and (hoped) got out; thinking that the guy would be there when I left.

He was.

So I crossed the street and headed up to the 7-11 to see what I could get him.

Going in, I thought: "Sandwich, apple, a small pie, and some water." (Junkfood and a soda will not help.)

The prices for everything was pretty steep. And even though I had other priorities which needed attending, I figured $8 wouldn't kill me much. (I found out today that I had more money left over on my card than I originally calculated! Am I as bad as Bush is, or what? lol)

So I paid for the food and left--hoping the guy would be there when I returned.

He was, but he was in the process of packing up and leaving.

As he came towards me, I handed him the plastic bag--asking: "Got a minute?"

He said sure, and that's when I handed it to him. The bag with the sandwich, apple, pie, and bottled water.

He said, "Thanks. It's been really tough."

I nodded in complete understanding. "Don't I know it." (Because in a few months, my wife and I will most likely be sharing in his fate--being homeless after so long.)

But I left with a good feeling in my heart. I did something for someone--even though I didn't have much.

Or the fact that I didn't know him at all.

Just some poor guy needing some compassion and caring from someone.

Sky

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THE SLUMP OF 2009

LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST STEPHANIE MEYERS.

FITS AND STARTS

A VERY IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE!

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FOR THOSE OF YOU WANTING TO SELF-PUBLISH

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THE SIDE EFFECT OF BEING 'TOO POPULAR'...

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NEW MARCHING ORDERS ARE FINALLY IN? (33 DAYS LEFT)

A WRITER'S GUIDE TO TORTURING YOUR OC'S

PRICE GOUGING OF THE WORST KIND

A $500 LESSON

OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS TO FORGET!

GOING FROM REALLY BAD TO EXCESSIVELY WORSE

TWILIGHT OVERLOAD

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

A QUIET WEEKEND.

OH YEAH...THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN!

POOPED BEYOND BELIEF

THE CLOCK IS NOW TICKING...

RECONSTRUCTION BLUES

IRRITATING TO SAY THE LEAST

ONCE MORE FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED...

MORE OF THE SAME TODAY

HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT. :0)

STARCHILD DUEL UPDATE

WHAT'S SO WRONG ABOUT WANTING TO BE DIFFERENT?

SUCCESS SHOULDN'T BE A ONE-SIDED COIN

MORE PROBLEMS ABOUND (Entry 3 of 3)

THE BOOK EXCHANGE (Entry 2 of 3)

NEW POLL AND PRICE CHANGES IN EFFECT. (Entry 1 of 3)

RICH AND POOR DISPARITY INCLUDES PUBLISHERS AND WRITERS TOO!

STRUGGLING WRITER HELPS COMPLETE STRANGER.