Revealing clothing

from this post

http://comingalive.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/my-submission-to-cbc-radio/

sorry for lack of formatting i’m nursing.

really tired of listening to my voice now. you may enjoy it tho

Support your Indie authors

Image via Wikipedia

Again we go in a circle back to Steal This Book experiment Joe Konrath is doing.

The commenters are split in various camps. One thinks piracy is evil and we must stamp it out, whether or not they believe it can be done, it’s still evil. Another group thinks piracy is inevitable and not evil and Joe will succeed in making money. And the third group think it’s just a publicity stunt and you can’t measure the experiment anyway.

I don’t think piracy is evil, or that free is going to take over the world.  What follows is mostly my comment on Joe’s blog, you can follow the link and see the whole thing.

Nathan Hangen says in his e-book, Claiming Your Destiny, he believes that things will swing back to the creators and they will be paid in spades.

The assertion that the culture of free is going to take over is merely speculation. Movie companies and music companies thought as much. In reality, their heydays of making money hand over fist were over.

The people who are against piracy and free are looking at things from a “the slices are getting smaller” perspective.

Joe and the people for piracy are seeing things as “the pie is getting bigger and we can all have a slice.”

As Joe as blogged previously, each time a new format of anything has come out, there has been panic.
VCRs were going to ruin the movie industry. I bet movie sales are at an all-time high despite piracy. If the movie industry isn’t making money it’s becuase of their out of control spending.

MP3’s have been the ruin of music companies because they fought against the new wave.

As content creators we are going to support each other more. More and more people are creating content. We have more energy and excess time and resources (mainly money), and we now have a way to reach mass audiences.

If you are worried about piracy, support your fellow independent creators. Buy their content and COMMENT on it. That’s how we are going to fight against free, but supporting each other.

As well, we need to create a community. When you don’t view people as faceless, you are more likely to support them. And they will also support you.

How can we support each other and create community? That’s the new wave of content creation.

Or at least it should be.

Finding proof

When you are looking for something it seems to pop-up. It was there all along and you’d probably have seen it anyway, but you wouldn’t have noticed it. Like when you buy or decide to buy a certain make and model of car and suddenly, you see them everywhere.

I wrote about positive thinking and failure. Then I stumbled upon (not through Stumble Upon, but through Twitter and linking around, I don’t have the exact log) a video post from Ridiculously Extraordinary about failure. Or rather, how there is no failure.

Watching it reinforced my own ideas. Having something not work out isn’t failure. There is no failure, if you use it as a learning step. If you use it to reframe your attempts. Also, there is no need to get things perfect.

What’s perfect anyway?

I have this desire to go back and re-edit Second Chance Romance and Summer Fling. Most second Chance because I love it so much and I know it can be better. I can’t even look at the copy that my mom has because I start making notes.

I haven’t done so yet. I need to finish Corey’s story first and then maybe. Then again, no. No. NO!

It’s not perfect, but that’s okay. It was my first attempt and I succeeded I finished the story. It could be better. A lot of things could, but it is good enough. I learned a lot from that book and no one has asked for their money back or written to tell me how much I suck. Too me that’s something.

I’m going to leave Second Chance Romance as is. It is perfect as it is. I’m never going to have perfect grammar in my writing. Someday, maybe I’ll hire an editor. Or not.

Do I need to get publisher perfect? What makes that the ultimate goal? Newspapers, probably the most widely read medium, are written at a grade nine level.

I’m going to move on and make the next thing better and bigger. Not dwell on the past.

I am a dork

Thanks to this Venn diagram found via Ditchwalk, I know I’m a dork. Perhaps I’m a nerd, but I’m unsure of my intelligence. I am moderatly smart. I have no idea what my IQ is. I never do well on those IQ tests online becuase I get frantic about math. I’m good at math, I just get panicked under pressure.

Anyway, I have the social inadequcies to label me dork or nerd as opposed to geek. When I have conversations I tend to talk about myself more than I ask questions. I often have no idea what to say so I lapse into silence. The things I do say are often unclear and I get embarassed and annoyed.

Right now I’m in an online conversation about writers and I asked if people wrote fiction or non? Everyone takes that to mean professionally. I kind of assumed we were all amaturs. *sigh* Makes me want to stop partcipating all together.

I worry about saying the wrong thing so I don’t say anything.

Which is why I fail as a blogger. No one cares what I think. I fail at connecting with people.

Why do I keep going? Because I love writing. And I have hope that someday I will have a small following and people will buy my writing en mass.

I had some hope yesterday while I was checking my email I got an email from problogger which had a link at the bottom to a relevant old post. Do You Feel like you don’t belong as a blogger? [I do] This paragraph at the end was particularly relevant to me:

Sometimes as more established bloggers those of us who have been around for a while come off as being more polished and qualified than we really are. The reality is that most of us are pretty normal and ordinary people.

So, maybe we all have self-doubts and feel out of place. We just don’t broadcast them. I guess the lack of followership is what makes lesser bloggers quit after a short time and those who persevere through the lack of followership win in the long run.

 

Maybe.

Getting things Done

Image by Sunfox via Flickr

Not talking about the famous book, Getting Things Done.

How do you get things done?

It’s life. There is writing and editing to be done. There is my job to work. The house to clean. Husband and child to spend time with. The energy required to grow a child. (Okay some of those are just mine, but not entirely unique to me as a writer, mom, human being).

After listing all that I feel like the woman in the photo.

And then there is marketing and networking. Which means devoting time to reading and commenting on blogs. Spending time on Twitter looking for interesting articles which give me ideas on writing new blog articles and also allow me to retweet and connect with more people.

There is also your own blog to write. I would love to do more reviews of Smashwords and other books. But then I have to take time away from all those other things to read the book.

I love reading. I love reading indie books. And reviewing and promoting them. But when I’m writing, I like to keep one plot line in my head. And this new plot line is a real struggle for me.

There isn’t time to balance all these things. You have to choose and for the next while it has to be writing and the house and the family.

Instead of worrying about what’s not getting done, you should worry about your biggest priorities. The rest will be okay without you.

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Panic in the masses

Publishers are panicking.

For years they have been the gateway for authors to get their books read. A few self-published authors have slipped out. Even then, the publishing industry swoops in and gets a contract for that book or at least, the subsequent books.

Digital publishing allows authors to skip past publishers and go directly to the consumer. They sell their books for less but get more in return. If they are unknown, they sell fewer copies and have to do more work.

Now even established authors are taking control of their electronic rights and getting more than the usual pittance (strike through) percentage allotted to authors.

Publishers don’t know what to do. Their current model cannot compete.

It’s time for them to step-up or step-out.

Hooray for choice. Without this new model, thousands of indie author’s wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being read. As a consumer, this means you get the same entertainment as before at a better price.

Electronic books give you no recourse for resale or sharing. But if you are buying a book for 1.99 or 2.99 or even 5.99, you aren’t losing anything. Right now paperback books are $7-10. You won’t be able to resell it for more than half of the orignal price and the author gets no money for that. Now, you can tell your friends about a book you loved, they can buy it instantly. The author gets another bit of money.

If books are 1.99 then people are going to be less inclined to pirate them as well. Movies are highly pirated because what you get for the money is grossly out of proportion. (And if you say they need to cost that much because the movie needs to pay for the price of making the movie- shame on the movie industry. Stop making movies that pay the actor’s $10 mill a flick. Find someone who will do it cheaper, actors are a dime a dozen down there. Stop spending $10 million more on special effects and basic destruction. The amount of waste the average shoot it up movie must create makes me cringe.)

If I’m paying $7 to give you two hours of my time, it better be worth it. Usually it isn’t. I haven’t seen many new movies in the past 5 years. If a movie looks good enough, we wait until it comes on network TV or less than $5 at Wal-mart.

Watch: Steal this Movie II.

Personal Vs Professional

I’m on Twitter. Actually I was on Twitter right after its start when no one knew how to use and thus stopped using it until I released Second Chance Romance.

By then Twitter was popular and tons of people were using it for self-promotion. Bloggers and writers and marketers, well everyone, was saying: You need to be on Twitter.

Mostly I retweet interesting articles. Something someone on my friend list linked to. Or something in my blog feed.

What I haven’t figured out is if it’s okay to write personal anecdotes. Is twitting about my pregnancy connecting with people or alienating them? Do they care? Do they want to read about it?

Some people I follow write mundane things. Some people I follow only post things relating to their “expertise”.

I’m not sure who I should be on Twitter. After spending some time writing this I’m not sure I even care.

Defensiveness

I am a very defensive person. If I even perceive attack I immediately go into defense mode.

It was caused by growing up with two rather angry parents.

But, that’s in the past. Whatever caused it, I have to take control and overcome it.

A few days ago I was talking with my boss, and I felt she was going to criticize me so I immediately justified my actions. And she immediately said, “I’m not criticizing, I just want you to be aware this is going on. And I need you to back me up on it.”

I still felt at ready for the attack. And for hours, no days now, after I’m still alternately justifying myself and feeling like I let her down. Neither of which are necessary. When I get up in it I repeat to myself, “I can let this go.”

I was trying to write yesterday and I couldn’t. (It turned out later it was because I had lost interest in the story). So I was just free writing in an open notepad file, and the defensiveness realization came out.

I am not sure how to overcome it quite yet. My life is as always a work in progress.

What types of traits are you holding on to from childhood? Is it hindering your life in anyway? Are you going to try to change?

Second Chance Romance, read my erotic short stories.

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Self-Centered

I am feeling annoyed with myself over my inability to make myself understood. I worry I come off self-centered and snobbish. This comes from introversion. I stay quiet in most conversations, living most of my time within my own thoughts. When I do speak I don’t ask/comment on others. And I often expect people are living in my thoughts. Only occasionally because I believe I have said them out loud, but mostly I just believe other people have my reality, my thoughts.

When I have to make phone calls I usually plan my exact words. When I don’t have a plan (as in the phone call before I wrote this) I stumble over my words, confuse the person on the other end.

When I know I am going to be visiting with a specific someone I plan questions to ask them. I realize given the chance I will speak only of myself.

When I fail to plan, I end up assuming the other person thinks I am an idiot. It may or may not be true. But, I find myself making up for my conversation confusion by apologizing or explaining myself later when I’ve had time to plan. By which time the other person has totally forgot the conversation. Thus proving, other people don’t think about me half as much as I think of myself.

Thinking too much about what other people thing of me is a sign of my self-centeredness and my anxiety. When it comes to interaction and other people I need to become more Zen-like. Observe, accept, let go.

It’s a writer thing too. i am always working on ways to improve, to edit, my words. With writing, at least, I can make myself as clear as I desire before I “speak”. I can make myself more succinct, eloquent, or I can choose not to say anything at all. I can write all my angry words and then burn them so no one knows.

If anyone knows me, they’ll know I usually don’t say much. Before I get to an edit, I decide my words are too stupid to show anyone. I wrote (and think) a lot more than I speak.

So thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to write. It has saved my life in the past. IT saves my sanity frequently. And it feeds my soul.

And thank you to all  the writers who have dared to put themselves out there, just sharing is an act of courage. There is a wide world of criticism. awaiting, but also silence. And praise. Even if I disagree with you, you have inspired someone. I am grateful to everyone who has inspired me.

Asrai’s ZEN:

Observe, Accept, Let Go