Well, I sold a story to Daily Science Fiction. I will link when the story goes up.
The writing goes well. Even the stuff that gets rejected is good enough to e-publish myself. The best part is that I'm having fun writing adventure fiction. It exercises imagination and plotting ability. I surprise myself daily by achieving a level of writing I did not know I could reach.
I'll be getting into e-publishing. I've been reading some interesting blogs on self-publishing, such as Dean Wesley Smith's, David Gaughran's and Bob Mayer's.
The great things about putting fiction up on Kindle, Nook, etc. and making POD books are: 1) You get a lot of the money and have total control, because you are the publisher and there is no bloodsucking tic of an agent to take 15%; and 2) Your work stays available forever instead of sitting on the shelf for a month and then being remaindered.
The bad things are: 1) You have to do all the work publishers used to do; and 2) You will never make George R.R. Martin-J.K. Rowling-Stephen King kind of money -- your books will never make it to the tables in Costco.
But smart writers don't miss any option. Try to get a traditional publisher, and if that fails, publish it yourself. Or publish it, then send a letter to a traditional publisher offering them a free copy and saying you will take it down if they want to publish your book. All of this can be done without agents taking 15%.
As I publish, this blog will become part of my marketing plan. I'll have to change the name of the blog to my real name, William Greeley, and blog more actively. Using this blog might not be a good idea, as my views are not mainstream. I offend everyone, left and right. Is that a good marketing strategy?
I would announce the name of my self-publishing house, but I need to get the url first. Do I need to copyright the name? What is that process?
Should I get a checking account in the business's name? Smith says so. What if a store writes a check to the publishing name instead of my name?
This is an exciting time for writers. The internet has opened more possibilities than any time since the golden age of pulp fiction.
Speaking of which, I just read that H. Bedford-Jones, known as "King of the Pulps," regularly wrote 5,000-10,000 words a day -- on a typewriter -- and was capable of writing an entire 25,000-word novella in one day. That's 100 pages! At a penny a word, he would make $250 for that one day's work. At a time when lunch cost 15 cents, $250 would buy you last year's car.
If he can write 20-40 pages a day on a typewriter, surely I can write 10 on a computer. The key is motivation, and knowing I have the internet self-publishing option is quite motivating.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
10 Crazy Things I Believe
I'm getting it all out in this post. After this you will be certain I am a certifiable lunatic.
I want to emphasize up front that I am not a physicist or scientist in any way. I took one physics class in college to fill my science requirement. As with most of the general courses outside my major, I skipped the classes, showed up to take the tests, and got a C. Then I returned to acting and drinking. I was not a good student.
What follows are my honestly held opinions.
1. The Big Bang never happened. Existence has no beginning and no ending. The universe cannot be measured by place or time, for it is all places and all times. The universe is eternal, which means "out of time." Time is the measurement of motion within the universe. It is impossible to step outside the universe to measure its size or time of existence.
2. Much of 20th century physics is nonsense -- Shroedinger's Cat, super string theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- it's all baloney. The problem is that modern physics has gotten away from reality, and is judged only by internal mathematical coherence. So physicists can spend their lives building cloud castles in the air that have nothing to do with the world we live in. Modern physics has been great for science fiction, because the physics theories themselves are science fiction.
3. God does not exist. There is no evidence. People exist, and people can lie. Religions are ancient lies. More recent lies are called cults.
4. Men and women are different. I've lived with many women. Not a one of them ever took out the garbage.
5. Western civilization is superior to all other cultures. This is why they are becoming like us.
6. Curtis LeMay and Joseph McCarthy were more right than their detractors. Unfortunately, history is written by the winners, and the left dominates academia and culture. LeMay was satirized in Dr. Strangelove, but his advice to bomb Vietnam into the stone age would have saved American lives. The Venona files have shown that McCarthy was right: there were communist agents in the US government.
7. The world will be a better place once the Baby Boomers are dead. This might seem cruel, but the death of every aging altruist/collectivist/statist/New Age fruitcake makes the world a better place. The New Leftist cultural revolution of the '60s and '70s left such a profound stamp on the Boomers that most of them are beyond redemption.
8. Some day Rock'n'Roll will be considered barbaric noise by most people. Only a small, drugged-out cult will listen to music with a backbeat; perhaps they will be called Deadheads. The rest will enjoy music that emphasizes melody, and that music will hit beats one and three, without the backbeats on two and four. Backbeat deemphasizes melody.
9. A rocket shot down TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996. I don't believe many conspiracy theories, but I do think Clinton stopped the investigation of Flight 800 before the truth was discovered because he did not want to go to war with Iran, especially not since he was in a reelection campaign. Airplanes do not just blow up in midair by themselves. Witnesses saw streaks of light going up before the explosion. Getting a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky is the least of Clinton's transgressions; ignoring the Islamist threat and giving missile technology to the Chinese are worse. The Clinton legacy will haunt national security for years to come. (To be fair, Reagan and Bush 41 also ignored the threat of Islamofascism.)
10. Environmentalism is not science. Ecology is an invalid concept. Environmentalism is an enormous pseudo-scientific attempt to destroy capitalism. The Old Left said it would be more productive than capitalism. In the 1930's many thought the west was doomed because Stalin had five-year plans, and we had no plan. By the 1960's it was clear that capitalism, without central planning, produces more than communism. (Read Mises.) So the New Left changed tactics and declared that productivity itself was bad; thus was the ecology movement born. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "the environment." There are environments -- my environment, your environment -- but THE environment is as mystical a concept as God.
If my 10 crazy ideas are true, then you can see that what most people take as normal is actually a twisted aberration. We live in a culture of lies and illusion. But when you've lived in a sewer all your life, you get used to the smell, and the air at the top of a mountain smells strange and unnatural.
I want to emphasize up front that I am not a physicist or scientist in any way. I took one physics class in college to fill my science requirement. As with most of the general courses outside my major, I skipped the classes, showed up to take the tests, and got a C. Then I returned to acting and drinking. I was not a good student.
What follows are my honestly held opinions.
1. The Big Bang never happened. Existence has no beginning and no ending. The universe cannot be measured by place or time, for it is all places and all times. The universe is eternal, which means "out of time." Time is the measurement of motion within the universe. It is impossible to step outside the universe to measure its size or time of existence.
2. Much of 20th century physics is nonsense -- Shroedinger's Cat, super string theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- it's all baloney. The problem is that modern physics has gotten away from reality, and is judged only by internal mathematical coherence. So physicists can spend their lives building cloud castles in the air that have nothing to do with the world we live in. Modern physics has been great for science fiction, because the physics theories themselves are science fiction.
3. God does not exist. There is no evidence. People exist, and people can lie. Religions are ancient lies. More recent lies are called cults.
4. Men and women are different. I've lived with many women. Not a one of them ever took out the garbage.
5. Western civilization is superior to all other cultures. This is why they are becoming like us.
6. Curtis LeMay and Joseph McCarthy were more right than their detractors. Unfortunately, history is written by the winners, and the left dominates academia and culture. LeMay was satirized in Dr. Strangelove, but his advice to bomb Vietnam into the stone age would have saved American lives. The Venona files have shown that McCarthy was right: there were communist agents in the US government.
7. The world will be a better place once the Baby Boomers are dead. This might seem cruel, but the death of every aging altruist/collectivist/statist/New Age fruitcake makes the world a better place. The New Leftist cultural revolution of the '60s and '70s left such a profound stamp on the Boomers that most of them are beyond redemption.
8. Some day Rock'n'Roll will be considered barbaric noise by most people. Only a small, drugged-out cult will listen to music with a backbeat; perhaps they will be called Deadheads. The rest will enjoy music that emphasizes melody, and that music will hit beats one and three, without the backbeats on two and four. Backbeat deemphasizes melody.
9. A rocket shot down TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996. I don't believe many conspiracy theories, but I do think Clinton stopped the investigation of Flight 800 before the truth was discovered because he did not want to go to war with Iran, especially not since he was in a reelection campaign. Airplanes do not just blow up in midair by themselves. Witnesses saw streaks of light going up before the explosion. Getting a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky is the least of Clinton's transgressions; ignoring the Islamist threat and giving missile technology to the Chinese are worse. The Clinton legacy will haunt national security for years to come. (To be fair, Reagan and Bush 41 also ignored the threat of Islamofascism.)
10. Environmentalism is not science. Ecology is an invalid concept. Environmentalism is an enormous pseudo-scientific attempt to destroy capitalism. The Old Left said it would be more productive than capitalism. In the 1930's many thought the west was doomed because Stalin had five-year plans, and we had no plan. By the 1960's it was clear that capitalism, without central planning, produces more than communism. (Read Mises.) So the New Left changed tactics and declared that productivity itself was bad; thus was the ecology movement born. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "the environment." There are environments -- my environment, your environment -- but THE environment is as mystical a concept as God.
If my 10 crazy ideas are true, then you can see that what most people take as normal is actually a twisted aberration. We live in a culture of lies and illusion. But when you've lived in a sewer all your life, you get used to the smell, and the air at the top of a mountain smells strange and unnatural.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Hm...
My Political Views
I am a far-right social libertarian
Right: 9.96, Libertarian: 8.02
Political Spectrum Quiz
I am a far-right social libertarian
Right: 9.96, Libertarian: 8.02
Political Spectrum Quiz
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