J is for Journal-keeping

If you're between writing projects or find yourself at a loss for what to write about, try keeping a journal. Since it's only for your eyes it can have anything in it, but consider it as a place for any number of notes and ideas that you can develop when the time is right. Mine began in the early '80s when my family first came in close contact with Cambodian refugees in the Lowell, Massachusetts area. I'd had nothing in mind at the time, but the notes came in handy when I began writing fiction later in the decade.

If you don't know how to start, the web has some good resources such as http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-a-Journal.

I is for Ideas and where they come from

Where do story ideas come from? Our own lives provide a rich trove of material, whether from our own experiences or from our observations. We read the newspaper, watch TV, learn about other people's troubles and maybe get an idea...so we jot a few notes on our computer for future reference, and then come back to it every now and then. I have a file named ideas.doc with random one-liners that may come in handy some day. They might be possible story titles, character names, "what if" scenarious, snippets of dialog I've overheard somewhere. The idea isn't necessarily to use them all--I don't--but to not forget them and to have a grab bag to dip into.

It's said that Tom Clancy's idea for The Hunt for Red October came from a small news article about a missing Soviet submarine. One day in the early 1980s I heard an NPR report about Cambodian refugees coming to America. That led to an association with some of the refugees and to my eventually incorporating the experience into two novels. At work years ago I overheard two women talking about shaving their legs. One woman said, "If I had legs like yours, I'd get a guy to shave them for me." I scribbled a note right away, and it patiently sits in my idea file, waiting for the right time to use it.

So ideas can come from anywhere. Use them only as starting points, though. Never feel like you have to stick with "what really happened." That only matters for non-fiction.

H is for HTML characters on your web page

Do you need a cedilla or an umlaut or one of those Ls with a line through it like the Polish language uses? Okay, probably not very often. But when a foreign word calls for it, you'll look much more knowledgeable if your blog uses it. So here is a link to the codes for all of these characters:
http://webdesign.about.com/library/bl_htmlcodes.htm

You'll need to click on the Edit HTML button

G is for George on Prozac

George, staring at one of his staff

Our Bengal cat George has been unwell lately. We've had him and his sister Gracie since they were weeks old, and now they're six. Lately he's been much quieter than usual except in the middle of the night when we're sleeping, and he's turned sullen (apparently) and aggressive toward Gracie, who's a sweetie. He's in the habit of grabbing her by the neck and holding her down, sometimes looking as if he wants to mate, though they're both neutered. Blood and urine tests at the vet haven't turned up anything, and we're in the process of trying some pheremone diffusers in the house to try calming him down. Today he's better, so maybe the diffusers are kicking in. Also the little guy goes on Prozac tonight. Maybe we'll mix it in with an evening martini.

F is for the Fantasy page of Deirdra Eden-Coppel

I don't know Deirdra, but she just honored me with her Creative Blog Award. Thank you, Deirdra!

Visit her blog at

http://astorybookworld.blogspot.com/p/awards.html

E is for Essays unfinished

Going through some old files, I came across a couple of paragraphs I wrote in January of 2006. It was meant to be the beginning of an essay.

My mom died in the hospital a couple of years ago, on a day of perhaps too-invasive tests to find the cause of internal bleeding.  I’d stopped by on my way home from work just to check up on her, only to hear from a doctor that she was minutes away from death.  To be with her in those last unconscious moments was both my privilege and my heartache.

Now she lies next to my dad, and they are finally at peace with each other.  What else is left but fond memories?

D is for (re)Discovery

Isn't Facebook great? My wife and I are traveling to South Carolina to see an old friend and his wife. Nancy, Charlie, and I were all high school classmates in Massachusetts nearly a half century ago, and Charlie and I had lost contact for most of that time. Then last year we rediscovered each other on Facebook (thank you, Mark Zuckerberg) and they came to visit us in New Mexico. Charlie took Nancy to the Junior Prom, in fact, so I wound up marrying his prom date. He and I both married well.

C is for Creating your own ebook

You can pay someone from $50 to $150 to format your book for Kindle, or you can do it yourself. All you need is time, patience, and free software. The following is a general outline of the steps to take, and doesn't cover every specific. (The same or similar method may work for the Nook, but I didn't try that yet.)

The tools I used are:
--Microsoft Word (or you can use OpenOffice, free from openoffice.org)
--Mobipocket Creator
--Mobipocket Reader

Both Mobipocket applications are free and downloadable from mobipocket.com:






1. Open your document file in Word or OpenOffice.
2. If you haven't finished all of your edits, finish them before proceeding.
3. Save your file in .doc format (not .docx or .rtf) with a new name. Leave your original file unchanged.
4. Make the following changes to your document:
     A. Use only a standard font such as Times New Roman.
     B.  Use tabs for paragraph indents.
     C.  Use an extra line break between scenes.
     D.  Put a page break at the end of each chapter.
     E.  Delete all headers and footers, including page numbers.
     F.  Replace em dashes with double hyphens, because em dashes don't display properly.
     G.  Get rid of any unusual formatting.
5. Save your file in filtered html format. (Filtered html allows you to create a web page that is still editable as a Word file, though with limited functionality.)
6. Upload the file to Mobipocket Creator.
7. Upload a cover image to Mobipocket Creator.
8. Click the Build button.
9. View the completed file using Mobipocket Reader.
10. Go to dtp.amazon.com and sign in to your Amazon account, then follow their instructions.

B is 'Bout changing the price of your Kindle title

A friend asked how to change the price on his book that he published on Kindle. Here is how:

1. Go to dtp.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon account.

2. Click on the Actions button associated with your title.

3. Click on Edit Book Details.

4. The first screen that appears isn't what you want, so click Save and Continue. The second screen has a place where you can reset the price.

Bouillabaise and books

We're guests this week and next in the Carolinas, so my A-Z Challenge is doubled for a while as I use my hosts' computer but focus mainly on socializing with them. They had three inches of rain just before we arrived, but so far we haven't seen any of that. Last night our hosts cooked up a bouillabaise of shrimp, corn, soft-shell crabs, and mussels. Mmmm-mm!

My new mystery, Little Mountain, is out. A box of copies has arrived at home, but I'll be too busy for a grand whoop-de-do rollout until our return. Much more about that later.

All right, who's in charge here?

This afternoon I've been trying to visit blogs, but my Internet connection has slowed to a crawl. What the heck is going on here? Where is the Complaint Department? Am I going to be reduced to doing something away from the computer, like lifting weights or reading a book?

This is an outrage. I am officially peeved.

Critique group bounced!

Today our fiction critique group was kicked out of our meeting place at El Comedor, a small Mexican restaurant. The restaurant staff was apologetic and said they didn't even know why, but someone told them to close immediately and get everyone out. It wasn't a fire or any obvious emergency--no gunshots, screams, fire engine sirens, nothing like that. We never found out the problem, but the six of us moved down the street to a coffee house.

It's nice little hole in the wall. I hope there's nothing serious going on.

Comic relief

It's been a long, slow slog through Bloodlands, a book I've promised myself to read and review. Hitler has decided to exterminate every last living Jew, while Stalin has been slaughtering his own countrymen for years. When the two evil forces clash, millions of innocents are caught in the middle. The book itself is fine, the product of considerable research, but it seems every other page mentions a body count from some mass execution, with the victims numbered with four, five, or six digits. I've picked the book up several times and put it back down to get a rest. Certainly the book deserves a complete reading before I write the review.

So last night I needed a complete change of pace. I popped the Pixar move Up into my DVD player and thought I'd give it five minutes. If it was too stupid or childish, I'd pop it right back out again.

What a pleasure. Up had me within two minutes and held me for an hour and a half. The animation, the characters, and the voices were charming, and much to my surprise, there was a strong plot. The whole idea that you could escape the encroachment of "progress" by lifting your house with helium balloons and sailing away is original, and it's just the beginning of a good story.

When my brother died some years ago, a good friend suggested after a while that I needed a distraction. Go see Men in Black, she suggested. I took her advice and had some great laughs, exactly what I needed.

Everyone needs comic relief now and then--even Shakespeare's plays have it. What do you do when you need to lift your mood?

Self-Publishing with Amazon's CreateSpace

Yesterday, CreateSpace emailed me to say that they've shipped the proof copy of my new murder mystery, Little Mountain. The uploading process wasn't too difficult, although it's nitpicky work. Of course you can hire them to do all or part of the job, but that just seemed like an unnecessary expense. They don't have layout guidelines per se, but they do provide templates. Each size layout has its own set of templates--my book, for example, will be 6" x 9", so I first downloaded the appropriate text template. All the margins and font styles and sizes are preset, so you can copy your contents and past it into the template.

Easy, huh? Well, yes and no. Be sure to copy only your text, not your document formatting (don't copy the very last spot in your document, and you should be okay). Then your margins will be fine, but you may have to tweak your font as well as headers and footers to make sure everything is consistent. You may want to justify your text, too. There is a table of contents section that you can simply delete if you don't need it. As with any templates, you can adjust it to suit yourself. Just leave the margins alone.

The cover upload is a separate task. I uploaded the text and then went to work on the cover. Their template is set up for Photoshop users, but if you use something different, you should have no problem. For example, I use Paint Shop Pro X. If you get something wrong, which happened to me on my first two tries, CreateSpace simply rejects your submission with an explanation of the problem. For example, your images must be at least 300 dpi and must fit properly. If there is text too close to the edge, you'll be told to fix it, and there are other details to watch for.

The exact cover template they give you depends on your page count, because that determines the spine width. Then it all has to fit within the specified borders. It's a little tricky, but not difficult. Just be patient, and don't panic if you don't get it right the first time.

I've skipped over a lot of details, but you'll see them for yourself on the CreateSpace website. One last detail you'll need, though. The files you upload have to be in PDF format, and they don't tell you how to do it. Luckily, it's really easy. The PDF Converter website is one of several that will convert your files for free. It's what I used, and it works perfectly.

If you have any questions, please post a comment, and I will do my best to answer helpfully.

Camp Furlong Days in New Mexico

Last weekend we visited Columbus, New Mexico with friends to see the Camp Furlong Days festivities. In 1916, forces controlled by Pancho Villa attacked the town, which is about four miles from the Mexican border. They killed 18 Americans and lost about 100 of their own before retreating to Mexico. The raid prompted President Wilson to send General Pershing to lead a punitive expedition that turned out to be of dubious value. Pershing never caught Pancho Villa, and the general eventually went on to lead U. S. troops in World War I.

So what were the raid and the response all about? A lecturer at the festival mentioned two theories: first, that "Wall Street" wanted to provoke  a war so that the U. S. could capture more of Mexico and seize its substantial oil assets; second, that Germany wanted the U. S. and Mexico embroiled in a war so the U. S. would be weakened in the event it ever decided to enter the European war against the Kaiser.


Today, little is left of Camp Furlong except for a few protected adobe remnants. Every year, two groups ride to tiny Columbus (pop. about 1800)--one from Mexico and one from northern New Mexico--basically, to have a party and celebrate the two countries' friendship. Snowbirds from the U. S. park their RVs in Pancho Villa State Park, a few minutes' walk from the festivities. The horses arrive more or less on time, carrying riders who wear colorful costumes and fly the American and Mexican flags at the head of their column.

An interesting sidelight: the mayor and police chief were unable to attend the event this year, as they were among ten people arrested in a firearms-trafficking bust by Customs and Homeland Security.

Not everyone is happy about the annual event. A descendant of one of the people killed in the Villa raid understandably fails to see what there is to celebrate.

History, bloody history

Schlepping my way through Bloodlands, a thick history of the slaughter that took place in Eastern Europe. Poles, communists, prisoners of war, Jews, Ukrainians--name a group that lived in that region, and it was probably targeted either by Stalin, Hitler, or both. On virtually every page someone like the SS is trying to exterminate large numbers of people, and it's depressing. Of course, I knew about all of this grim history on a macro level.

The writing is fine, but this is a slow read that I had to put down for a couple of weeks because it's such disturbing material. When I'm finished, I'll write a review for the Internet Review of Books. It should have been done weeks ago.

By the way, the Internet Review of Books is always on the lookout for talented reviewers. If you're interested, or just want to suggest a recent title, let me know. We're light on fiction lately, so leads on promising novels will be especially welcome.

Ebook survey: What would you pay?

I've read lots of opinions about how to price self-published ebooks. Some have said pricing at $9.99 suggests that it's a quality product and that charging only $0.99 suggests the opposite--that in fact the author doesn't value his or her own product very much. Try 4.99 or 2.99 or ... Yet others have said they think most people will risk a buck on anything.

So let's phrase the question differently, because I am about to publish a book and make it available on Kindle. Assuming you don't know my work but you are at least mildly intrigued by my book, a full-length murder mystery, what would you pay for a self-published ebook by an unknown author?

I'd appreciate your comments on this post. Again, tell me what you personally would do.

And thank you. This will help me a lot in pricing correctly.

Fortune cookie writing advice

My wife got this fortune at a Chinese restaurant and gave it to me:

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

That sums it up well, doesn't it?

Bisbee, Arizona Peace Wall

Haven't written with any consistency of late. This coming week my novel gets one final read-through before going to CreateSpace. If all looks well, I'll heave a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, we've done some traveling. Here's something I saw in Bisbee, Arizona, a city built on hills.

Peace, everyone.

Out of the freeze and writing about the heart

We're thawing out from our recent deep freeze, with temperatures back into the 60s after several days of rolling blackouts for many of us. Yesterday a friend said this was the coldest he'd ever experienced around here since the late 1940s. We had a half-dozen blackouts lasting up to two hours each, while at today's writers' group one person reported a three-hour stoppage and another person reported no outages at all. Above is a view of the Organ Mountains from partway up "A" Mountain on the outskirts of Las Cruces.

Our writers' group meeting went well on a couple of levels. A relatively new member, Connie, moderated the meeting and conducted a 15-minute exercise on writing about the heart. What does the word mean to us? Some wrote about the heart as a pump that keeps us alive, and others wrote about the human spirit. Connie expected that some of us would write about Valentine's Day, but apparently no one did. My own effort tried waxing poetic about the faithlessness of my heart where it comes to writing projects, to not being able to keep a commitment to one project. It was hardly the stuff of poetic anthologies, but it was fun anyway.

Next month, another member will conduct a program about self-publishing.