Live

I had a dream that I made the story go live before it was ready.

Oh man, I've been sitting here all morning trying to remember my dream and what it meant and just like that when I sit down to write it out it just pops out like that.

So I think the dream was that I put my story up on a site like Smashwords, but it didn't have an ending and so I was scrambling to fix the ending so that people wouldn't be upset. And I think in the end no one noticed because no one was really reading yet anyway. Or no, actually I think I had quite a few people download and then it didn't go any further than that because I didn't have an ending and people didn't like that.

Well, I've been in a mood all morning because of that. Same thing yesterday. Another unsatisfied mood which I blamed on a lack of productivity. Only I did produce stuff, but it wasn't good stuff. Which is how it is actually supposed to go.

Now that I've decided to work on a novel, it generally goes like this: write some stuff, realize that it isn't good enough, mope, rewrite/edit things before we can go on, be happy and feel productive until we repeat.

I can't stand this up and down stuff. Writing has always been my balance. So I'm trying to convince myself to also continue the fun writing as we go because the fun writing is what pulls me through a day and leaves me floating on a cloud. I haven't yet though because I'm lazy and don't wanna.

Plus, yesterday when I decided that I would do a fun writing piece in my journal (long hand), I ended up writing another scene to the story I was supposed to be taking a break from. What the hell, brain? Can't you do one thing I ask of you? And if you're going to be a rebel, can't you at least rebel by writing better than I do?

Surprising Lesson from a Real Life Character

I've really been meaning to write about the man I am going to call K.

He's gotta be the strangest person I've ever met. He showed up after I'd been here for six months looking for an apartment. Right away I could tell something was off with him, but I couldn't tell what. (Because of my sister, I think I'm a bit sensitive to these things sometimes at least subconsciously even if not overtly. This doesn't mean I'm always right about it, mind you.)

He was very talkative. Plus he's the sort of person who couldn't pick up on cues that indicated the conversation was ending. I'd end up having to tell him a flat out good bye before he'd go and then it would be very abrupt and I'd wonder if he was mad at me for being so blunt.

But he wasn't. He never got mad about my being blunt. In fact, that's what he liked. He left and ended up coming back and applying for an apartment. Well I was just thrilled at the time. He was trouble all the way. Not only did he talk too much, and he brought along his 80 year old mother (he was almost 60), but he couldn't fill out his own application and so I had to do it for him as he gave me the answers one afternoon in my office.

Why would I put up with this? Would anyone else have bothered? I dunno, but I'd been taught by my old boss that sometimes you have to go out of your way to make a sale, and that's basically what I was doing. (I attack renting apartments like I'm making sales which from what I've seen is a very different tactic from the normal way apartments are rented, so let that be a reminder to me that it's okay to do things different from what's probably the standard procedure.)

Well he got it based on his own merits. That's a very simple sentence. What I mean is HE GOT IN. Well crap, that brought on a whole bunch of new issues. He hadn't moved in years, and he was freaking out (in a manly way I'll add, though I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse). Plus, once he was in, I'd have to put up with visits from him that lasted forever unless I asked him to go. (Seriously, he was in my office once for over an hour mostly talking.)


The strange part though is that in listening and learning about him, I actually found myself softening a little. Whereas before I thought he was weird, the things I learned about him sort of helped me explain his behaviors.

He comes across to me as a very blunt and honest guy, so I don't think he's lying when he tells me the things he tells me. According to him, he's been a jockey, a musician, a military man, a carnie running carnival games, a house painter, and a sanitarium worker. He goes into detail about each of these jobs and what he learned about people and other strange factoids about his life.

Is he lying? Honestly, I do have my suspicions. But he is very earnest about it and very honest and blunt about it. Plus he's simply entertaining. So I could sit there and question him about it, doubting him all the way, or I could just take what he's telling me for the most interesting story I've heard come out of someone's mouth.

At some point, I decided that the truth of it didn't matter to me. I actually do enjoy our talks (in short doses). And whether or not it's real, it's interesting.

But perhaps one of the most important things I've learned from him is to just keep at it. He manages to win over a lot of people. He talks a lot and he talks to a lot of different people about a lot of different things, and he will listen if you speak up. I'm sure there are plenty of people who doubt him, but for those people who do there are those other people he's won over who do accept and believe him and most importantly trust him.

My Marketing Plan

It's very simple and it involves a lot of begging.

I'm not good at advertising. This is a fact. But I do have other strengths that I can play up. I do this all the time when I go to sell things (like apartments) and it's worked pretty well for me so far.

I'm blunt and honest. Those are my strengths. How can I make those work for me?

Well, I already have Ruin up, I've got readers. Some comment but many don't. If my google web stats are right, I have about 40 subscribers (and 30 followers, but these all cross over plus this only counts google subs). I get about 70 page visits on Fridays when I'm supposed to update whether I update or not (we can knock that down to around 50 page visits just to kick out those people who probably stop back to check comments).

And that is all word of mouth really. I only post on VSS, so I haven't really tried very hard to get word out.


So my first plan is to finish the current story on Ruin. (We're so close-- I think.) Then admit that I'd like to make a book version and open up a discussion for it. Find out how many would actually be willing to go for that and support me. (For those who don't comment, I'd be willing to put a poll on the side.)

How that goes will determine a lot of things. It's sort of scary, but like I said, honestly and bluntness is my strength.

The next part is when I finish. Smashwords allows you to generate coupons. So once the book is complete and priced, I'd generate a coupon to make it free and post it on the blog because the readers are king.

Here is the part where I'd beg. Beg for them to pass word on, pass on the coupon (you can set how long the coupon will work so if you want it free for the first month, you can do that), and write reviews.

That's the main part to my plan really. Otherwise, I've started my site, got a separate twitter, started my Smashwords account. I'm a little embarrassed about it at the moment because I haven't put much thought into any of those, I just wanted to have them so I can start thinking about them and learning how to use Wordpress. I've gathered some helpful links and have a couple of blogs that I read and comment at using that info.

It's sort of awkward because I was thinking about how I hide behind my user name. I really do. So now I'm supposed to put my name out there and meet new people. And that's what I'm most uncomfortable about-- learning to stand behind my own name. That's why it's just my first two initials at the moment. I just honestly couldn't use my first full name.

So that's what I've got at the moment. I'm still in the process of experimenting and reminding myself that this is all an experiment.

Deciding to commit

On writing discipline

Last year, I made the resolution that I would update Ruin at least once a week. My fear has always been that I wouldn't have enough. That I'd get to some point and then the idea would disappear or I'd stop wanting to write, or I'd get distracted.

So the whole year was an experiment. If I could keep up writing one update a week, then I could prove to myself that I could do it. And I did it. A year later, only a couple more updates to go to complete the year and I'm still going strong (with plenty of updates that I feel I absolutely must put out still).

Ruin is the only story I've got in my head, but there is a lot of it, and after a year of battling through distraction, indifference, lack of confidence, I've come out on top of it all and still determined to get it done. I want to write, even when I don't want to write, and I have plenty of ideas left that I want to explore that still surprise me.


For the next year, my main resolution is going to be all about focus training. I'm going to work on writing an hour a day at least five days a week. This will be one hour of distraction fre writing. I'll lock myself in the bedroom with a computer and write. It doesn't matter what I write or what I do so long as I focus on getting something done and take that time to myself.

And no distractions allowed. No internet or email peeking or blog poking or twitter. For starting at least one hour a day.


This deciding to commit thing isn't new for me. Sometimes I just get to a point where I'm ready and then I get determined. So I'm determined. I'm going to write a book, and I'm practicing saying it out loud. (But still not talking about it out loud.)


Also, this is awesome.

My school experience

I rarely ever look back. I'm not one for regret, and I constantly forget things just by blinking. (I hope I'm neer in a situation where someone goes, "And where were you on the night of May 5th?" Because my standard answer is, "Oh, there's been a lot of blinks since then...")

There are some memories that I hold onto dearly though. Usually memories that have atmosphere of some kind even if they no longer mean much to me. Like what it feels like to sit listening to my record player and watching dust swirling around in the sunbeam above me. Or that time, before I'd started school, when I stood staring out the window staring at a huge tree that was in someone's backyard. It was further away than I ever walked (I wasn't allowed across the street) but I just knew it was close. It was a weird moment where I realized that the world outside was both very near and very far to me.


Anyway, so MedlyMisty has been posting up some interesting and semi-introspective posts over at her LJ. They made me think back on my school "career" as it were. This is not the first time I actually have done this. Actually the first time was for my capstone project for my CSU. While I was doing my research, I very much saw myself. It was a strange eye opener.

You know, I actually started out on the low language track? I only remember taking a test in kindergarten, and after that I think it was all on the recommendations of my teachers.

English is a second language for both of my parents (technically a third in Mom's case), and so I came into school with pronunciation problems. I ended up in ESL by first grade even though English was my only language.

Those were some weird memories! I was the only one who spoke English, and we'd play things like Go Fish. I also remember the teacher showing me how to shape my mouth for the letter "L." Eventually, once I could say "world" and not have it sound like "word" I was given an encouraging little certificate and no longer got to miss PE. Which is what made me the most sad.

As I progressed through school, I still had issues. I was in the lower track for language probably stemming from my ESL days and the assumption that I couldn't do it. I suppose at some point, a teacher decided I could do it, and fourth grade started out with me in the high track.

Now as a kid, I had no idea what the hell the tracks were. I wasn't really thinking about stuff like that. Other kids knew, and I think someone told me, but I didn't really care.

After I'd been in the high track in English for a while, it became clear to that teacher that I had issues. I didn't know what nouns or verbs were, and I was too scared to ask. And he expected us to know. But having come from one of the lower tracks where the emphasis was mostly on getting us stupids to read right, I'd never been taught parts of speech.

So I was booted out of the high track and back to a lower track (with a speech and everything from the teacher to try and make me feel better about it without exactly saying what was going on). In the lower track, we would conjugate verbs out loud as out warm up exercise. I remember my little brain going, "What the hell? Does he think we're stupid?" Only probably not in words and definitely not with curse words.

It wasn't until sixth grade came around, and I had a teacher who actually explained what the hell nouns were. She had us doing things like sentence diagrams. I found I enjoyed grammar, my teachers noticed that I enjoyed grammar, and I was on the high track from then on.

Not that it really mattered. In the end, I never realized that I was in a high track until I got to high school and was in honors English. Even then it didn't matter to me. I've never been impressed by myself. I'm just going to do what I want and like to do and taking cues from my gut on when it's time to move.


Anyway, semi-pointless and weird story about my life, lol. That's kinda what this journal is for.

Finally Found Them!

I knew I had some old pictures somewhere of the area. I was sort of needing inspiration for CAW, and what better way than to look at pics of the area?

A friend of ours came out from Virgina to visit with us here in California. So while we were trying to take her out places, I snapped a few pics of the area. It probably won't look like what you expect. So I hope anyway.



This is a shot of what we see when we're heading out of town on the highway. (Cause there is only one out of town.)


Another shot of the highway.


A shot of some of the hills.


I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, and I had my character start on Corelia (which is Han's home world planet in case you didn't know). Well, the planet of Corelia, in game, was always very familiar. It looked a lot like this. So much so that I always wondered if they weren't working out of Silicon Valley which is actually very near us (about an hour away, which is near-- see how sparse those hills are?)




The Red Barn that's of course supposed to say "Antiques," but it cracks me up that it says, "Ant ques." I always have an image of ants lining up waiting to purchase their junk.



Here we move closer to home. This is a shot from Carmel Beach. It's only 20 minutes from us, but it's a different feel from a beach in Monterey Bay.


If you turn, you'll see one of the holes at Pebble Beach. It's a famous golf course which some people know and some don't. The AT&T Pro-Am stops by here every year bringing along with it star athletes and celebrities. Huge deal for us. It seems the local favorite is always Bill Murray. Or so the news papers used to tell us.



A view that's basically home.

This is a shot from the Aquarium. We live in a little bay which is also a protected sanctuary. The strip of land we're looking at (across the way) is about where I live. That strip right there is probably two towns.

If you stand at the beach in the bay, you can see the land curving. If you look out on the horizon, you can see two points of land that look like they're reaching for each other. It gives a false sense of security though, and many people fall for it. In actuality, there is a canyon in the bay that is huge, so the water is actually very dangerous because if you get too far out and don't know what you're doing, the undertow will get you.


I've spent a lot of time growing up here thinking about how not only how you're raised affects you, but your environment too. Everyone reacts differently to the stimuli of course. But what I grew up with is a hearty respect of nature. Every so often, I get someone from the east coast who ask why there aren't more hotels on the beach and that always makes me pause. In those instants I realize the effect growing up here has on my thinking.

That's why it's so awesome when we travel.

You'll see how this observation makes its way into ruin. And how my landscape will eventually make it's way into the story too. I haven't really worked on CAW this month, but I count about four weeks before I need my world to be ready. SO my next project is definitely going to be that.



As a bonus, I'll leave with the shot that made us perverts in the car start laughing. We had to snap this shot after we laughed so hard in disbelief on the way in. This shot was probably on the way out.


It's supposed to be "Three M Carpet." Apparently, no one has ever told them of the connotations of "MMMM, Carpet!"