Category Archives: Atoms for Peace

June 29, 2018 · 4:30 pm

This week seemed to have such promise

I was really optimistic about this week. Next round of Leaf articles hasn’t started yet, Screen Rant is done, I had time to focus on my personal projects.

But TYG was doing a lot of stuff this week that required concentration. And Plush Dog, for whatever reason, was needy. Actively needy, constantly trying to climb on her computer or barking for attention. So I wound up running interference, plus putting in a lot of extra dog walking. The time added up. Plus I was freaking out over some of the political news. It can’t be helped at times, but it’s not productive. I wound up several hours behind my quota for the week.

So what did I get done?

I finished a second draft of Only the Lonely Can Slay. Relocating the action to my old home town really sharpened the setting, and the dramatic arc improved some. However that’s a long way from saying it has a good arc. It’s trickier because I don’t want my protagonist to know exactly what she’s involved in, even when it’s all over. So we’ll see.

I thought a little about the rewrite of No One Can Slay Her but didn’t actually put any words to paper. I did make more progress on the final draft of Southern Discomfort. I’ve gone over four out of the 12 stories in the draft paperback of Atoms for Peace and edited them, though I haven’t made the corrections in the manuscript on my computer. That matters because some of the notes are just “sentence doesn’t work, fix it” when the correction is more than just a word or something concise.

I did not come anywhere near close my 1,000 words a day goal. Come July with no Screen Rant deadlines to make, it should be doable. And I will make it a priority.

I did draft a query for Space Invaders for McFarland but held off submitting it. There’s a couple of markets I’d like to look at first. Next month, one way or the other, it goes out.

Oh, and as noted this morning, I started making some upgrades to this blog. Hopefully that will prove worthwhile. It may be telling that I think of this as a blog first — but when I visit other author’s websites, I usually go to the blog first. After all, it’s the only part that’s likely to provide anything new.

And I also posted an in-depth review of The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse on Atomic Junkshop.

Subject to a couple of personal goals I hope to accomplish tomorrow, I got a little over 50 percent of my June goals go (the crazy schedule this week put paid to a couple of routine things I normally accomplish in the morning).

On the food front, we ate the first of the tomatoes TYG has been growing in the back, along with the herbs. Unfortunately the local squirrels pulled about twice that number off the plants — they don’t eat them, they just bite into them and leave them. Pure spite.

And we took the dogs to get groomed Wednesday. Plushie’s tail was so matted they had to shave it completely, leaving what looks like a little pig’s tail. Packs quite a wallop when he beats it on us.

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Tagged as Doctor Mabuse

June 22, 2018 · 4:30 pm

The light at the end of the tunnel was not an oncoming train

It’s what happens when some of the viscous jelly in your eye gets hard and crusty and breaks off.

I noticed flashes in the corner of my eye last weekend, and soon figured out they weren’t reflections of my glasses. Then I got some big floaters drifting across my vision. A quick check online established this is an unremarkable phenomenon, probably due to age, and not a serious issue. Unless, of course, I had an actual torn retina in which case it was an emergency. It didn’t seem extreme enough (I was referencing an eye doctor website so I was confident it was accurate) so I called my doctor Monday and went in for an eye appt. on Tuesday. Happily I was right, nothing serious, though the floaters are distracting (the flashes have faded away).

That took a chunk out of my week, Screen Rant took a bite more. The one I started on last week proved undoable for various reasons, but I spent about three hours on it before giving up. Tuesday I picked up a new one, 20 Things About Winter Soldier That Make No Sense (Jack Kirby’s cover gives us a look back when he was just Bucky, of course). As yet, it’s not up, though I submitted it this afternoon. It took more time than I wanted — upping the minimum from 15 to 20 adds quite a bit more work, both in searching for entries and writing. It may be more than I have the time to keep doing — it’s fun, but this might have to be my last. I’ll give it some thought.

While Bucky Barnes took up a chunk of time, I did continue work on Southern Discomfort and the Undead Sexist Cliches book. I’ve made my wordage on both for the month, but I’ll put in more time on SD next week. I started work revising No One Can Slay Her, though I didn’t get far. I’ll put in time on that next week, plus (hopefully) rewriting Only the Lonely Can Slay.

Oh, and I got a Createspace copy of Atoms for Peace and began proofing. Cover by zakarianada on Fiverr, rights to it are now mine. Going to take more work than I thought, but that just proves I made a good call getting the copy.

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Time management and goals, Writing

June 15, 2018 · 4:12 pm

Ten years ago, less one month, I met her

And seven years ago last Monday I married her. And I’m so glad I did.

We had dinner last weekend at Sage, a local vegetarian (mostly vegan) restaurant that’s our go-to for special celebrations (Monday would have been rough on our schedules). We also traded gifts as we didn’t want to wait. I got TYG a good ice cream scoop and a charger for her phone; now she no longer has to carry the charger back and forth from bedroom to living room My gift was season tickets for both of us to Playmakers, one of the local theaters. Very good choice! Neither one fit the theme (wool, copper) but we don’t care.

Then Sunday Plushie had his back spasm and we were very stressed. That flowed into the work week. Plus I didn’t make out my schedule Sunday with my usual care, which left me feeling oddly off-balance this week. Though I didn’t let that stop me working. I also wasted a lot of time on a Screen Rant listicle I simply could not find enough items for. Eventually I gave it up, someone else took it and did fine and I found one that worked for me (not out yet) — 20 Weird Facts About Dr. Strange’s Body. For example, it’s actually older than the Earth, due to Earth being destroyed in the Bronze Age, then recreated.

As I’m a Dr. Strange fan, that was a lot of fun, though it took more time than I’d planned. SR Listicles now have more items with shorter text. I think the added time for research undoes the gains of less writing.

I didn’t come anywhere near making my 1,000 words a day of fiction. I did get some more work done on Southern Discomfort so I think I’m revising on schedule. No short story work.

I submitted Atoms for Peace to Draft2Digital, but the cover I commissioned seems to have a technical problem. So do my chapter headings —a lot of headings for scene changes (giving the time or location) are showing up as chapters. If I’m understanding the site’s advice correctly, the latter should be an easy fix. And I probably know enough computer nerds who can figure out the PDF problem.

I also submitted the PDF to CreateSpace. This time I’m going to order a draft copy of the paperback before I release the ebook. I’ll see the mistakes much better that way.

Oh, and Thursday I had coffee with my friend Heather Fredericks, author of the delightful Timber Howligan, Secret Agent. She’s working on a sequel; I’ve read the rough draft so this was a feedback/critique session. She said it was very helpful. I’m pleased.

Next week, with my SR already picked and no Leaf, I anticipate a lot more fiction writing. Fingers crossed.

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Time management and goals, Writing

June 1, 2018 · 3:43 pm

Accomplishments for the week and the month

So I was working on my next Screen Rant, about weird ways movies cover up mistakes, and I ran into a problem: I couldn’t find any. Outside of “keep it in!” when an actor screws up, there’s very little. I emailed my editor for some advice, but she was away, I didn’t ask another editor right away and the end result was I didn’t get it done. So now Rant post this week But on the plus side, more time for everything else! I got another 5,000 words of Southern Discomfort done, including fixing the scene that was giving me problems. And I think I see how to fix the problems with The Impossible Takes a Little Longer — we’ll see how it plays out in the rewrite, but I’m optimistic.

I also tried uploading a PDF of Atoms for Peace to Createspace so I can proofread a copy. Apparently a PDF created from Apple’s Pages program (not a favorite of mine) doesn’t work as well as when I make one with Draft2Digital’s system. So I shall prepare one next week, as I’ll be creating the ebook via D2D anyway.

I read No One Can Slay Her to the writers’ group Tuesday. Got lots of helpful feedback, and lots of enthusiasm for the story.

Plus I finished the usual Leaf articles on topic such as where to find book value of debt on a corporate balance sheet. On the assumption I’d be working on Screen Rant at some point, I squeezed seven of the 10 Leafs I’d scheduled into Monday, to free up time. Very tiring. But it was nice when I finished up Tuesday and had the rest of the week free. It felt awesome being able to put almost two days in on fiction, and actually get somewhere.

For the month I completed 68 percent of my goals, which felt quite satisfactory, especially as most of the ones I didn’t get done were minor or non-urgent. My biggest disappointment is that I just don’t complete short stories as fast as I’d like. Subordinating them to Southern Discomfort and to the immediate-pay gigs (Leaf and Screen Rant) makes sense, but I’d really hoped to have two done by the end of next month. I should have No One Can Slay Her done once I make use of the feedback, but I’d hoped to have Angels Hate This Man done too. Doesn’t look like it. There’s only so much time to go around.

Oh, I did put up two posts on Atomic Junkshop, one on the myth there’s a definitive version of characters (“Spider-Man achieved perfection when I read him as a teen! Clearly if I retcon away all the changes since then, it’ll be perfect again!”) and one on The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, longer than my post here.

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Impossible Takes a Little Longer, Movies, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Story Problems, Time management and goals, Writing

May 18, 2018 · 4:14 pm

Embrace the disorder, learn how to bend

(Title adapted from the theme song of Psych).

Sometimes my 1,000 words of fiction a day rule needs adjusting. A week and a half ago, when I accepted the Vampire Diaries romances list from Screen Rant, the due date was this past Tuesday. To get that done and get in my Leaf articles, I had to focus on them Monday and Tuesday and forget about fiction (I’ll do the same next week, with my article on Shatterstar). Under the circumstances that was okay, so long as I made up the extra wordage later in the week, which I did.

Without the demands of doctors and plumbers that bedeviled me last week, this was a productive five days. I got in my Leaf work and the Screen Rant. Plus about 4,000 more words on Undead Sexist Cliches. It’s definitely easier to make my chapters coherent when I have a big block of time to work on it.

On the fiction side, I went over No One Can Slay Her for a final review and it’s done … subject to any feedback from the writer’s group in a couple of weeks. I redrafted Angels Hate This Man; it still needs a lot of work, but I think I’m finally getting somewhere. I finished The Cheap Assassin‘s first draft and started rewriting a story called (for the moment) Neverwas (time travel, bookstores, the apostle Luke — it all makes sense!). I didn’t get any further with Southern Discomfort, but I’ll be back on that horse next week.

I also found a cover for Atoms for Peace. I’ll post it soon.

It took me over my usual 35 hours a week (or is that my theoretical 35 hours a week?) to get it all done, but I didn’t feel stressed. So yay.

#SFWApro. Image is George Frederick Watts’ Chaos via Wikimedia commons .

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May 17, 2018 · 5:07 am

Publishing, one way or another

So last week I began the search for someone to draw my book cover for Atoms for Peace. It’s slightly nerve-wracking (what if I pick the wrong cover and destroy the book’s chances?) but it needs to be done. So I’m pleased I’m taking a necessary step.

But it also makes me appreciate why so many writers are adamant about not going indie. This is me, spending money up front with no certainty I’ll ever make it up on the back end. Making decisions about cover art which is not my forté, even given I got lots of ideas from writing friends on what to include/not include. Admittedly Atlas Shagged turned out okay visually, but finding an image is different from ordering one up.

A writer discussed the money side recently on Twitter. To get the income she needs, she has to go traditional, with more than one book a year. Spending money on cover images, marketing, etc. isn’t affordable. If it were, say, 10 years ago, I wouldn’t afford it either (this was back when Freedom Communications was getting real cheap with us employees). Even now, there’s a limit to how much I’m willing to spend on a cover. I’ve yet to spend any money on marketing. And it looks like changes at Amazon will reduce the royalties on CreateSpace paperbacks which doesn’t help.

Which is why while I’m self-publishing some stuff, I’m still going to submit Southern Discomfort to a trad publisher when it’s done. The same for The Impossible Takes a Little Longer (when I finish it) and for the nonfiction Space Invaders (assuming I do go ahead with it). As I said back in March, the copy-editing and proofreading required for a major film book are more than I should take on myself. I’ve never finished a book that McFarland didn’t have to correct errors. I suppose I could hire someone, but that’s more outlay on my part. Questionable Minds will probably be self-published as I think I’ve exhausted the publishing options.

Another factor, as countless indie authors have pointed out, is that what they’re doing is running a small business. Of course that’s true for every writer; every one of us, traditional or indie, is the sole proprietor of our own business. The indie end is just a lot more businessy. Being boss of myself is one thing, but dealing with (potentially) marketers, artists, editors, etc? To paraphrase John Rogers of TV’s The Librarians, lots of talented writers don’t have the skill-set to manage that kind of business, or the money to pay someone to do it. As the publisher of Falstaff Books put it, that’s why he started the company — he’s willing to take on those details and let writers get to writing.

This is a kind of rambling post as I don’t really have strong opinions yet. The stuff I’ve self-published has generated a little revenue, but nothing that makes me feel this is where I should put all my chips. So who knows? Not me, apparently.

We shall see if I figure it out.
#SFWApro. Book cover is mine, image is Sargent’s Atlas and the Hesperides.

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Filed under Atlas Shagged, Atoms for Peace, Nonfiction, Southern Discomfort, Writing

May 11, 2018 · 4:27 pm

Life vs. Art Round Two: This week it’s a win-win!

A very busy week, but very productive. Wisely when I saw the IRL stuff I had to do, I asked if I could skip a Screen Rant (normally I do one a week) which freed me up to concentrate on other stuff. While I’ll be back on the job next week (a Vampire Diaries list), it really paid off for all the other stuff I do.

But first, the IRL. Tuesday, I had a dentist appointment. Nothing serious, just a regular checkup; my teeth are fine though they’re starting to edge toward gum disease again. If I’m not in better shape next time (I will try — gums actually respond to heavy cleaning) — it’ll be a round of scaling, where they clean all the way under the gumline. Not pleasant — it has to be done under anesthetic. I’d rather avoid it, so positive thoughts toward my gums are welcome.

Second, Tuesday I took my first Alexander technique class. My friend, drama teacher/director/actor Laley Lippard, recommended this school of movement training to help me with my voice-straining problems. I finally booked some time with a local teacher. I can’t really describe the training without making it sound dumb, but I think I see how it can help my voice (other things too, it’s a full-body technique). My teacher sent me home with some lessons to work on until I can find time for another class (July, after my Leaf work wraps up and I have more time in the week).

Third, we had three plumbing problems to deal with — clogged toilet, leaking tap, possible gunk leak from another toilet — so I had to deal with plumbers. It went well (though expensive of course): new tap, snaked toilet and the gunk, whatever it was, doesn’t appear to be a leak (yay! One less expense).

Despite which, I got a lot done on writing besides my Leaf pieces and submitting my list entries for the Vampire Diaries article:

The biggest is that I started work on the final draft — and it will be final — of Southern Discomfort. I wasn’t able to print it out at the library last weekend, so our rickety printer churned out the first 10,000 words at home instead. As usual for final drafts I read it aloud, made changes, entered them in the computer. My goal for this month was 10,000 and it’s now done — though I’m not stopping there. This is the part of the story I’ve gone over the most so it’s not surprising it went fast. If I keep going through May it’ll make up when I get to the later parts that need more work. Yay, me!

I made my thousand-words of fiction a day goal, and not just the Southern Discomfort stuff. I also finished rewriting No One Can Slay Her and about 2,000 words of Angels Hate This Man. I resolved the How’s He Doing It question that stumped me last week by deciding yes, Rev. Lennier really is freeing people from Hell. So far it’s working — we’ll see if it steers me to a satisfying end. I also got in a couple of thousand words on a new story, The Cheap Assassin.

I rewrote 4,000 words of Undead Sexist Cliches. Having a solid block of time to focus on it worked really well.

And I tackled a couple of paperwork tasks. I got a question about our state taxes resolved, and I went ahead and commissioned someone on Fiverr to draw up a cover for Atoms for Peace. It’s the first time I’ve commissioned anything along those lines. Wish me luck. And I submitted Schloss and the Switchblade to Allegory—more luck, please!

Getting all that done took a lot of evening work, which I normally dislike, but I’m very satisfied with the results.

Below, a Gervasio Gallardo cover to look at, just because it’s cool (don’t let the HPL name fool you, this was 90 percent Derleth).

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Nonfiction, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Time management and goals

April 24, 2018 · 5:04 am

Atlas Shagged is a go!

Now live from CreateSpace, my newest short story collection.

This isn’t exactly the same as the ebook. I added in the stories from my ebook Philosophy and Fairytales so it’s a good deal longer. We have:

Atlas Shagged

The Wodehouse Murder Case

The Sword of Darcy

Dark Satanic Mills

Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Clown

Links are to the Story Behind the Story blog posts on each yarn.

Feel free to buy a copy. No, honestly, go right ahead, no need to feel bashful or unworthy.

Now that that’s done, on to Atoms for Peace. One thing working on Atlas Shagged has taught me, I need to do a better job proofreading. I think actually getting Atoms for Peace printed as a trial-run paperback and proofing that will focus my eyes much better.

#SFWApro. Cover image is John Singer Sargent’s “Atlas of the Hesperides.” Rights to cover are mine.

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March 30, 2018 · 4:33 pm

I did not slide smoothly to the end of the month

I was feeling relaxed, rested and ready after last weekend’s trip to South Carolina. Still am (not today though) but I must admit my mind is resisting when I try to focus, much the way it did before the trip.

This was just a bad week for focus. Early Tuesday morning, Trixie got up and needed to go outside to poop. As usual, I woke up while TYG was zonked, so I took the little one. By the time I got back in I was wide awake. Even if I could have gotten back to sleep, Trixie had a couple more trips to make as time wore on, so I’d have gotten up anyway.

My plan for Tuesday had been doggy day care for both pups, then I’d settle down and finish the tax returns. Handling and sorting through the 1099s and other forms just gets awkward working around them. But we obviously weren’t going to take Trixie, for fear she was having a return of her stomach upset. And then Plush dog puked up his breakfast, so we didn’t take him either.

The logical thing to do, of course, was switch and work on something else, like Screen Rant or Leaf articles. But I was so zonked by lack of sleep I couldn’t focus on that stuff at all. End result? Very little got done.

So the rest of the week I’ve had to push myself, and my mind has been pushing back. Oh, and it turns out we still don’t have one piece of information we need — TYG will have to contact the relevant company for the right form.

That made my plan to wrap up various projects this week a no-go. I did get some work done on No One Can Slay Her, but didn’t finish it. Contacted an artist about the cover for Atoms for Peace but she’s too busy.

Finally today I decided to just wrap up whatever I could. I submitted one short story, checked on two that have been out a while (one still under review, the other got lost in transmission) and I finally edited and finished Atlas Shagged. Assuming everything goes smoothly, the paperback will be up for sale next week. That is actually pretty cool, and it feels great to have it (as far as I can tell) wrapped up. I’d wanted to do a little more but my schedule had to allow for extra puppy care for various reasons, and naps (mostly broken up by pups).

My policy of not reading email until late in the day has proven effective. It helps keep me from just stopping when I’m tired and checking email, and then rechecking, and then rechecking …

I shall post next week about the overall performance of the year’s first quarter, based on use of that planner I bought a couple of months back.

In the meantime, here’s a photo from Significant Mother, one of the Bad, Forgotten CW Shows on this week’s Screen Rant.

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March 23, 2018 · 4:30 pm

Wow, Wednesday felt wonderful

Not that the rest of the week was awful. But between the added stress from those deadlines and one weekend getting eaten up by sick Trixie, my mind was really balking at work this week. I got my stuff done, but it was definitely slower and more sluggish.

Wednesday though, was great. Because of a morning snowfall (abnormal for Durham this time of year), TYG didn’t go into the office. She stayed on the couch with the pups, I stayed upstairs and worked in peace. Plus I didn’t have any Leaf articles to do (I worked on them late the night before) and I didn’t have a Screen Rant (I should have, because I’m supposed to turn in one a week, but for various reasons that didn’t happen). So for the first time in a couple of months it was just me working on my stuff all day. It felt incredibly liberating.

As far as the week’s accomplishments go, I’ve proofed most of the Atlas Shagged paperback, and found more errors than I expected. So taking the time to proof was definitely the right call (I may eventually go back and fix the ebook too). I contacted one artist about the cover for Atoms for Peace, but I didn’t hear back, so on to the next one.

I cleared up some of my Impossible Takes a Little Longer problems ; instead of my stereotyped Comanches, I’m using a colony of ET warriors along the lines of a bad 1980s syndicated cartoon (think Silverhawks). I’m still not entirely sure what I want from the villain, but I have some ideas.

I worked a lot on straightening out Undead Sexist Cliches (The Book) prior to the next rewrite.

I looked at some possible markets for Space Invaders, and so far McFarland is looking like the best option. Several other small publishers that take film-reference books have some requirements that won’t work for me, like providing a list of seven peer reviewers who can critique the proposal (or the book, I’m not sure which). I imagine if I were an academic writer, that would be easier, but I’m not.

I’d have gotten a couple more things done except I took today off for some stuff. But it looks promising for getting my last writing tasks for March wrapped up next week.

For your entertainment, here’s a shot of Trixie, in my lap and under my lap desk (don’t worry, it’s not resting on her).

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