THE SLUMP OF 2009

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

NEW ADDRESS. (1 DAY LEFT.)

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

2014 RELEASE DATE? (7 DAYS LEFT.)

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)

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

'Potter' publisher looks to promote next big thing

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