Role Models and Vinyl... No not like that.

A friend showed me an article on the internet (It’s this new thing, everyone’s doing it.) people are in an up roar over the Merida from Disney’s Brave.  Disney gave her a ‘makeover’ so she’d look sexier. People have started a petition and I guess won. Disney has since pulled the images.

They say it corrupts her as a role model.

Am I the only one that feels this is wrong? People want a character created by Disney/Pixar is a role model for their children… Ok, let’s start with this:

Merida isn’t real. (Duh, I know right)

Merida is created by a company that’s bottom line is to make money. (Sure companies can do nice things for community/country/world, but face it, if they aren’t making money. Their gone.) So of course they are going to do everything they can to make the next buck. \

She wasn't that great a role model people. In the attempt to get what she wants she almost destroyed her whole family. I know I’d be a little cross at my son if he did what she did.

I scratch my head.

I think I’d encourage better role models…

Real role models…

I try to be the person I’d want others to be.

A new addiction has started…

Years back I started getting into vinyl records, I’m talking like ten plus years ago. I’d picked up some when my god brother worked at Tower Records. He got me a discount! Of course had money to waist on things I couldn’t listen to if they were discounted! Later,  I was given a nice record player by family, it wasn’t an audiophile turntable by any means, but I was shocked at just how good it sounded. I mean the turntable was a Sony from the 70s. But one day it had jammed and so my record collection was left to sit again for almost another ten years.

Then I started seeing there was an option to get my new music on vinyl with a free download code for the digital copies. That worked for me. I wanted the sound of vinyl and the convenience my iPod. I really don’t use CDs, and for the most part they just get piled into boxes for when the FBI comes knocking wanting to know if I’d stolen all my music.

Now vinyl was really starting stack up, and I’d never played any of it. I thought it would be a great idea to get myself a record player. A really nice record player! Anyone that knows me, understands that I can’t just get a low end anything. So I started looking… I was quite shocked at just how much a record player can go for.  “Audiophile” record players start at about $400 and go all the way up to almost $100K. I spent a week in sticker shock, I’m not normally one to succumb to sticker shock.

This was one of the few times where I had to weigh what I wanted with what I could afford.

I settled on a Music Hall MMF-2.2

It’s a good starter record player with a great arm on it, but I’m thinking I want to move to a glass platter soon. When I wear this one out, I’m hoping to be in a position to get into something a bit grander. For now it’s a phenomenal player. Stuff I’d only heard on MP3/CD sound so much better. And I do mean better.  Phantoms by Fixx sounds better than the CD version. Like night and day. It goes from flat to alive. Talking to my cousin, it’s because the early techniques for transferring music from the masters to CDs where flawed and it hurt the end product in many cases.

Now that I have a way to play vinyl, I've watched my collection explode. Some of it comes from hitting second hand stores and finding old records at .99 all the way up to five dollars. The rest is Amazon’s fault! There ability to feed me vinyl is disturbing!

Now that I have a record player, I’m going to buy and write a story on an old ink typewriter. Mark my words…it’s going to happen.

Till next week,

Robert

Camp and other family adventures

As I’d said last week, 5^th Grade camp adventures were on! I had a great time and so did Zack. 
The number one thing learned; my son is a boating NUT.
As an experiment I thought I’d use some of my “Grew up in Alaska I can do about every outdoors activity ever” power and I took Zack out in a canoe. My largest worry about putting him in a small canoe was balance. Sure let’s put my hyperactive son in a boat that requires you keep centered and then sit you have to sit apart so you can’t help him!
Let’s just say; I was prepared to go into the drink! 
We put him in the boat and he quickly found that if he moved so did the boat and he came to enjoy his bird’s eye view carefully while I paddled him about. During the session two other boats capsized and both times teachers and instructors were sure it was us and came running. Only to find we were the ones coming to help. It was kind of a proud moment. ;)
From then on, his goal was to get into another lifejacket and back out onto the water. During free time we had the opportunity to join up with others and take one of the larger boats. This also meant we got to go farther out into the inlet.
The quote of the trip goes like so: 
As we reached the deepest point of the inlet, the boating guide starts telling us about the area and how deep it was when Zack turns to the guild and declares.
“Let’s raise the Titanic!”
Everyone looked from him to one another and we decide that the best answer was: We were on the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. Also, I wasn't sure I was ready to drag the Titanic back on paddle power alone.

"Titanic Explorer Zack, reporting!"

With camp coming to a close, I got back just in time to host family down from Alaska. We did some of my normal northwest things. Cruised Seattle, checked out the university stores, I picked up some sweet records for almost nothing. Then Sunday we headed to Portland to check out the largest bookstore on the area Powell’s. If you’d never been, it’s worth doing. I recommend taking the train down from Seattle.

It has been a long time since I hosted family and it was really nice catching up. It reminds me just how much I need to visit home and just see… everything. It’s been embarrassingly too long. I wonder if I could fly up and then take a nice slow boat home. It would be good to go up and then write about my experiences on my way home. If I flew home, I wouldn't have the time to really write about it.

And if my boat sank, I know Zack would come along and raise it for me.

Till next week

Robert

Getting on Track and Travel

Look at that, another week another blog!

I can’t say I’m complete back on track, but I’m getting there. Just a short one this week.

I’m currently still working on edits to Devil n’ Jack, while I have the first 25 pages well polished… Many, many pages still need a good scrubbing. I’d like to have scrubbed by November. Because, boys and girls. It’s time to start putting (digital) pen to (digital) paper and start book three of the Dinatech Series. I have been itching to create and not edit. I have a ton of stuff that want to be writing on right now. But there are only so many hours in the day. I must be good, I must edit!
Monday is my son’s 5^th grade camp, you blink and he’s no longer the 4 year old that we dropped off for pre-school. 
Get this.
Not only will I be going along, but somehow I’ve also been put in charge of a whole cabin! I have enough trouble trying to keep myself out of trouble, now I’ve been given the chance influence a whole legion of trouble makers!  My friend was telling me about how his school was banned from camp indefinitely for crazy antics. I think will try and avoid going that far...
My camp was 6^th grade, and I have to think really hard to remember that trip. Yeah getting old. I’m glad that I get to share this with him. I hope that he enjoys the trip. It sounds like a lot of people are putting a lot of work into this.

On a last note…
I DID IT! I finished all five books in the Ice and Fire series! It’s been six months of work and at times it really was a slog to get through. But, it’s done and now I can talk and be one of the cool kids. We can have great intellectual talks about the story and I don’t have to sit there, hoping beyond HOPE, they don’t say something that’s going to spoil it for me. I’m just SO happy to be finished!
But, the next morning. There was this moment when I looked over my books and thought “Isn’t there just a little more Ice and Fire I could read?” It’s like Stockholm syndrome! Then the second panic came; I’ve have such a MASSIVE backlog now I didn’t know what in the hell I should read next!
I settled on a Sarah Dessen book… of course.

Till next week!

Robert

Geeks and Authors!

Okay, okay!

I know I’ve been a little quieter than you might have liked these last few months. But I promise you, behind the parchment curtain there has been plenty of activity. I’ve been trying to keep my blogs to things that have been interesting and not just blogging to blog.
I have to blame Sarah Dessen for adding to this pressure though. She’s been keeping up on hers. Making me feel guilty!
I came across something that all but whipped my literary mind into action, a music video “For the Win” by Team Unicorn. It features Weird Al Yankovic, Aisha Tyler, and Grant Imahara.  It basically shows off four woman in half clothed medieval Cosplay fighting some kind of evil while talking about Magic the Gathering and Comic-Con.  “Hey we’re hawt and we play games!”

There is one other music video like this done by the guild team.

There seems to be this huge geek movement going on right now. It’s cool to be geek/nerd and I’m not sure that’s really what it should be all about. It fact it kind of goes against the definition of the word
I can’t put my finger on it fully, but it bothers me. WHY DOES IT BOTHER ME?
 

In other news… Norwescon 2013 has come, has happened, and has ended.

In the busy life I’m living I only got to go for one day. I’ll be making this up later in the year when I head to Sacramento for a 4 days and nights for Westercon.
I won’t say that my one 3/4^th day at Norwescon wasn’t productive though. Of the few panels I went to. One of them was “Practice My Pitch” or as I lovingly called it. “PIMP MY BOOK!” basically a room full of people trying to become published authors. On the stage the panelists hold a nice juicy steak in the form of a fast track to an agent.
Thinking that I’d only have MAYBE thirty seconds to convince them MY story is the one they should pick. I was totally super prepped for this panel. It went something like this.

Day of; 12:30 At lunch with Del:

Del: “You know we have that pitch your story panel at three, have you got your pitch ready?”
Me: “Shit I totally forgot that we were doing that today!”

I cram the rest of my lunch down, headed to the hotel gift shop, and bought a pen and a pad (somehow I left the house that day thinking I wouldn’t need to take any notes). Then during the 1pm panel wrote and perfected the pitch I was going to give.

With my pitch ready and an hour to sweat, I decide I need a courage in the form of inebriation!
I downed a few beers I head off to give my pitch.
Getting there and getting settled into seats, it turns out it’s not a pitch at all. In fact it’s more like a four on one interview with authors and editors for places like “Daw”. So after letting someone else volunteer to be the test subject I finally had a grip on what to do and it had nothing to do with the pitch I wrote. Also I checked the clock and it was now 3:20… There are far more people than pitch time.  

It was time for Rob to be assertive!
After a few more pitches, I was picked! “You with the arm higher than anyone else’s.” Del later tells me, my arm found another six inches once she said that.
I walk up onto the stage. I settle into my seat. I give them my idea, why I think readers would enjoy it and making a few jokes about the story. The audience laughed at the right places, things seemed good. It ends I shake hands with the panelists and they grill a few more people after me. I really couldn’t tell you what happened for sure, I was off in jitters land.
After a small and what I’d say; heated debate.
I was picked as the winner!
I couldn’t tell you much of my day after that. I kind of floated about till Cask Beer Festival, then I drank myself stupid in celebration.
The next day I got up and it was on. One week to whip my first draft into something I could show another living person! I have to again thank Amie and Dell. Without them I’d have never gotten it all done and make it look like someone that knew ENGLISH was writing it!
My first 25 pages are currently sitting with an agent…who may or may not be laughing at me. :)

Enough for this week! I try and keep these to 500 words. I’m at 800!
I’ll try and be better about my blog, sorry to those of you who read this dribble, it should at least be on time.

Till next week!
Robert

 

And welcome to 2012, err 2013

A new year!
And the novel engine marches on.
I’m… maybe a week out from being finished with the first draft of my YA Romance book. Its sitting right about 108K. The manuscript scheduled to hit 120K by the time I type “The End”. I know the word count is far and above what most upstart YA writers do, but I’m expecting to cut about 20K out by the time I’ve edit it and another 20k will come out by the time it’s published. Talking with friends, they say larger books are becoming more expected in the YA genre. I hold on to the worry; I don’t believe a publisher would buy an oversized book of an unproven author. The cost of materials aren’t cheap. I keep going back and forth on it in my head.
Even as ‘Oil and Water’ goes onto a shelf to marinate, I have a stack of ideas that want to be written, and I need to start looking over the manuscript ‘Devil n’ Jack’. All these things fight for my writing time, I’m grumpy that I can’t give them all a slice! Ah well.

In other news I’ve started laying the groundwork for a podcast for AoA Publishing, I’ve got the first few hours of recordings done! Now I need to go through and review raw recording so I can edit it into a 30 minute file people would want to listen to. It should be ready for download in about a month.

The other day I got an itch to make a top 10 page of things l like. I wanted to have it done before writing my blog, but it’s been a lot of work so far.  Formatting and thinking through everything I’d ever seen/read/listen to take a lot more time than you’d think. Once I have a bit more done I’ll let others take a good look. 
I was walking by a box of bagels today, and while it might seem like the most news worthy thing in my life, I bring it up because of the logo on the side. It confused the hell out of me.

 Blazing Bagels
“Best Bagels East of New York”

When I saw it, the first thing I thought was; “What kind of company would say: ‘If you go here, you can find better bagels than us!’”
Company ideas that come to mind:

Second Best Pillow Company

We we’ll save your neck, but that shoulder is still going to hurt like hell.

 OR

Pittsburgh Cheesesteak

Not quite Philly, but it’s good!

Oh list goes on and becomes ever more inappropriate as I think about it. Maybe a post for my other blog. :)
Then a second thought came to me; I realized in that moment, I live on the West Coast… Now, I know we live in a global market. But this seems a little off, it’s a long way east for New York to Seattle. Do they only distribute east in an attempt to compete directly with New York for Bagel supremacy?
Ah well…

What I’m reading:
Started book three of Ice and Fire! Woo! It’s a damn thick book for sure!

Violence: A Writer’s Guide by Rory Miller – An author I’ve become friends with after a night of drinking with him.  That night, I learned I’m not worthy when it comes to wring violence. So after my editor (who was also there for drinks) bought me his first book I sat down and read it cover to cover in like 3 hours. And a few weeks later I’m reading it a second time sopping up all the information I can for Dinatech book 3.  The formatting of the book needs work. But the content is worth more than gold if you are looking to write violence in a story. I hope to help Rory with formatting for his next book.

What I’m listening to:
Cray Button by Family Force 5 – I’m getting into a lot of dance music. It might be time to breakout the polyester pants, big collared shirts, and platform shoes… and burn them on my way to the club. This was a song I hear over a year ago and didn’t really think much of it at the time. Now I’m all up in that. -_-

Express Yourself by Labrinth – Another dance song and part of the Windows 8 ads. I enjoyed it enough to buy it. What can say for myself? NOTHING sometimes I have no taste.
Last time I left you with a music video and I’m going to do that again.
 Personally, I’m in love with this video, I’d liked the song, but when put into context with what I’d call a short story, Taylor Swift may have made one of my favorite music videos.

Next time we talk, my manuscript will be done!
Robert

Rolling out the new year.

Happy Holidays! I hope all yours have been…happy? I guess I already said it, demanded it. But I didn’t ask it, how rude of me.

21st came and gone...role call. Everyone still there? Good, good. Will try again next year.

I needed to mail something for the first time in … forever. Meaning I had no stamps. Meaning a trip to the post office! Walking through the door, I found they’d removed the stamp vending machine (I blame budget cuts) making me wait in line with the other three people needing to mail things out of Milton. I was standing there admiring the different box sizes when the lady before me said “I need a roll of stamps.”

Immediately my mind went “WOW” the very idea, a ROLL of STAMPS, was the coolest thing since the invention of shock therapy (something else I may need). I marched right up to the counter and asked for my very own roll of stamps. Forty-five dollars later I was sitting in my car hugging my stamps and saying, “Now what?”

Only I could find a way to make an impulse buy at the post office.

A roll consists of a hundred tightly rolled (obviously) stamps for your mailing pleasure.

Isn't it beautiful?
Don't worry they leave you in the end.

I’ve used one, and at my current rate of use. My son will inherit this roll.

I’ve started to come up with some ideas of how I could better put this roll to use.

One idea is “Strippers” I just love the idea of twenty dollar stamps that you can just sick to a strippers…umm…butt. Maybe I could mail girls about the room to my friends, just by “attaching” a stamp.

Mail me other ideas, better yet. Give me ideas and I’ll mail them to myself.

I don’t think I’ll get another blog out before 2013 so here is my list of things I’ve done:

• Finished and published my follow up book: Corporate Policy
• Put out both my books in one paperback volume: Dinatech Series Vol:1
• Read more this year than ever before.
• I’ve put down 100 books against my goodreads.com list
• Drove across the US
• Went to three writing conventions
• Wrote more blog post than last year! – I did slack off through the end, but all for good reason. Something had to give and I needed my book out.

I’ve got a few goals for next year, and unlike last year; I don’t have complete control of them, the master goal is find an agent. Everything beyond this will be gravy. :D

What I’m reading:

Song of Ice and Fire will be on the list for like the next half year, so I’m going to just assume you know this.

250 Thing You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig – I follow his twitter, I follow his blog, I can blame on a friend of mine. Buying his books I can only blame on Chuck, because they’re funny as hell and filled with quick, sweet wisdom about writing. If you are thinking about writing anything I encourage you to give it a read. Get used to hearing the word “motherfucker” he likes it, and uses it like most people use salt.

What I’m listening to:
North by Matchbox Twenty – More specifically “Put Your Hands Up” They got a little digital on this CD, and while it shocked me at first. I enjoyed it. But I find that one song seems to get stuck on infinite repeat…

 

It's time for a change!

Today, any typos I make I’m going to blame on the Microsoft Surface

I thought I would give it a try and see how well it could work as my mobile authoring tool. If I find that I’m liking it, I might replace out the Mac Air as my mobile tool of choice. There are still some major issues that would need to be figure out. Like right now I can’t use Scrivener on the RT. I’d have to upgrade to the pro when it comes out early next year. I’m also not sold on the windows version of Scrivener, I’d have to take a better look. But it might be fine to when I’m on the road and I can use the Mac version when I’m at home and ready to do final work on a story.

The week has been amazing, I’ve gone from looking at my first proof copy of my paperback book to seeing it for sale on Amazon. I hope to do some promoting of the book as I go, but I’m going to be happy getting back to doing the pen monkey work more.

The irons in the fire right now are; a Young Adult book, a comedy, a magical fantasy, and I’m working on a Vampire romance book per my wife’s requests. Already decided, I’m going to be finishing the YA book first, I’m already 90k into it. Once I have that done, I’m going to sit back and see what’s next. I want to submit some work to for feedback for Westercon, which needs to be done by May. I also hope to run or be part of a panel this year. It’s another one of my goals.

But all of this is just steps to my goal of getting published. This is the next real hurdle. The money be damned, if I can get a book on the shelf with a publishers’ logo on it. My goal will be made. I’m not going to be delusional that I could make King like money or something, just I’d like to say for sure that I’m a published author. I’d like to go to a party and say “Yes, I’m published.” And I don’t have to say “self-published”.

In other news I’m trying to relax a little more, I even spent a few hours over the weekend playing video games and I cooked dinner. I haven’t done much of that as of late.

I’ve also been thinking about dropping coffee as a drink again, I don’t like my dependency on it. But to do so would mean breaking contact with some people I have come to think of as friends. It’s a tough decision to make.

 

What I have I been reading:

A Clash of Kings (Book two of a Song of Ice and Fire) by George RR Martin – This is a big enough book that I’m going to be reading it for a few weeks.  I hear how heart breaking this series is, I’m firm believer in loss for gain. I wonder what I’ll be saying at the end of book 5. If you can put up with the ups and downs I recommend giving it a read.

What I’m listening to:

Lana Del Ray – I found her through some cheap MP3 deals and I’ve been really happy with what I found. I went back and picked up her first album. I will warn you, I don’t think her music is for everyone. But it is for me.  Her voice is quite lovely.