I shouldn’t. I know it. There are just some things, like old loves and teased hair, that are better left in the past. The First Manuscript: a mystical creature figuring prominently in the fantasies of literary personalities and central to the large body of myth surrounding wealth, success, and cirrhosis. Like it’s mythical cousins, the… [Read more…]
May 15, 2012
Hey guys. Remember when I said I didn’t like raising the price of Stories About Things to $6 ? (See: title of this blog.) Well, I thought about it. And you know what I thought? Screw that. Expanded distribution allows books to be sold to bookstores and libraries that don’t normally browse Amazon and Create Space… [Read more…]
May 12, 2012
*sigh* Editing. Still editing. Not only is my latest NaNoWriMo novel going under the knife, but for some completely unfathomable reason, I decided to bring my years-old first-ever-finished novel into the operating room too. Don’t ask. I have no idea what I was thinking. In between the editing, I am finding time for making new… [Read more…]
May 11, 2012
Ok, ok, I know! It’s not there. As a steady trickle of emails have alerted me, people noticed when Stories About Things disappeared from CreateSpace and Amazon. First, thanks for noticing! Secondly, problem solved: the original dead-tree version of Stories About Things is officially back up. And it’s not alone. There are now two versions of the book available.… [Read more…]
May 2, 2012
This is a continuation of my musing on a free-software-type ideology for fiction. Read Part I Read Part 2a There are two approaches to the books aren’t software argument: 1) software gets special privileges (in this case: freedoms) because of it’s special position in society (read: indispensable,) and 2) fiction gets special privileges (in this case: controls)… [Read more…]
May 1, 2012
This is a continuation of my musing on a free-software-type ideology for fiction. Read Part I The primary argument against the ideology of free software seeping into fiction may be that they too-different spheres whose ideas are simply non-transferrable. I disagree. Of course. But it’s a valid point. Fiction is not software. Books are not computers.… [Read more…]
April 27, 2012
I did it. Finally. After months of shrinking from the idea of selling my work in any shape or form, I finally went ahead and did it. Stories About Things is now officially on sale at Amazon as a real damn book. Like the kind they put on paper. Mostly, I figured that if I want to be a real… [Read more…]
April 24, 2012
I wrote a letter today. I thought of letting it sit for a while–maybe one day, maybe two–to let the emotions settle down. I thought of coming back to it later, as I often do with my posts, to make sure that the commas are in order, that I sound professional and polished, and that… [Read more…]
April 24, 2012
Two weeks ago, a guest post appeared on one of my favorite (and oft-cited) blogs. The author was a mysterious web developer and Arizonian named Jack Zeal, and the post, entitled To Be Esteemed, Be Useful, detailed the cumbersome nature of licenses, even those designed to promote free use. Mr. Zeal concluded that the best alternative was to “embrace… [Read more…]
May 22, 2012
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