Anger, Laughter, and Chocolate

Some anger:
My younger son just finished reading Animal Farm for school. He loved it and hated it. At one point, he became so angry at what was happening that he threw the book across the classroom. Well, not all the way across, but he threw the book. I applaud his outrage over the depredations of Napoleon. The interesting thing to me is that of the kids in his class, only my son and one other kid grew upset over what was going on in the book, and that outraged my son even more. He kept saying to his friends that Napoleon was evil, and they couldn't understand why he was saying that. Right up to the very end. I think this may be very indicative of our culture, because all the kids expected it all turn out okay in the end and, really, Napoleon was just trying to do the right thing. It's interesting and more study should be done about this.

As a side note, I don't remember there being any issue among my friends with understanding the book when I read it in middle school. Now, I'm curious if that was a product of my school (smart kid school) or a product of my generation. I think this question is coming to me about 30 years too late.

Some laughter:
Well, actually, I'm just still laughing over "It was a sock," but, because I'm a nice guy, I'll give you something else to laugh about:




And, now, the chocolate:
Remember, Wednesday is the deadline for submissions in the Great Chocolate Contest. Briane Pagel has a great story in the works, but I'd hate for him to win by default... even if he does say he's going to win anyway.


But, now, the real "Anger and Laughter"! Today is the FREE! release of the newest piece of Shadow Spinner:

Yeah, those are the proof copies, one of which someone should be winning very soon. Only three in existence! My son temporarily has the third one. But, anyway, today, Monday, February 4 and tomorrow, Tuesday, February 5, "Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter" will be available for FREE! You can't beat that price is all I can say. To go along with the FREE! release of "Anger and Laughter," I also have FREE! today only:
"Part One: The Tunnel"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
Tell your friends, and don't forget to click the little "like" button. That would be awesome!
And, if you've read "The Tunnel" or any of the other parts, it would be great if you'd feel lead to leave a short (or a long) review.

The Long, Dark Tea Time

[with thanks to Douglas Adams]

From a blogging perspective, I think that's what November is, the long, dark tea time. For one thing, it is so dark. Getting up at 5:30 a.m. is never fun, but it's even worse in the dark times of the year when it's still pitch black an hour later when the rest of the family starts getting up and even still dark at 7:00. No, I'm not having tea, but maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea? I don't really know. Hmm... maybe, I'll have to try morning tea to see if that helps me get through the mornings.

Of course, that doesn't really have anything to do with blogging.

And I don't really like tea.

November is the long dark for blogging because of NaNo. At least, I'm pretty sure it is. If I was NaNoing, I know I wouldn't have any time for any kind of blogging. Or eating. Probably sleeping, too, except for what would happen actually on my keyboard when my head would crash to the table from trying to pound out 1700 words a day. I do know that I saw a dip in blogging activity last November, so I fully expect that to happen again. Still, that may not be all bad. Fewer blogs being posted on will give me more time to do my own writing as opposed to keeping up with blog stuff, so the fact that everyone else is bent furiously over their keyboards may not be a bad thing.

Of course, the drop in page views does make a blogger uncomfortable. You know, other bloggers. That kind of thing doesn't affect me at all. Nope, not me!
heh

Speaking of being in a dark place, Tib finds himself in a dark place with the release of Part 8 of Shadow Spinner. And let me just say, there is no tea involved.

"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark" is available today, Monday, November 5 for FREE! It will also be available Tuesday, November 6 for FREE! As an added bonus, "Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow" will also be available on Monday for FREE! As a double added bonus, I'm throwing in "Part Three: The Bedroom" for FREE! also! Look at that, three FREE! chapters all on the same day. Go check out what kind of long dark Tib has gotten himself stuck in.
And click the "like" button!

Speaking of Tib, you should pop over to ~*~Whatever~*~... today. I'm being featured over there and answering a rather unusual question. Go check it out! The whole thing is something called "pimp my blog"... I'm not really sure if I'm the pimped or the pimper. Is that a thing? Anyway... Click the link and take a read.

Now, this part has nothing to do with the long dark except in how it can seem like such a long dark time when you're first starting out in writing. The struggle to write at all (especially for all of you NaNoers out there), the struggle to find an audience, the struggle to keep going when it feels like no one is listening. The long dark struggle. But, really, this has nothing to do with that. In my effort to highlight older posts from when this blog had virtually no readership, I'm bringing up this old thing: The Dream vs the World. Go check it out. And don't forget, just because it's an old post doesn't mean you can't still comment on it.

One other note:
I have a special project I've been working on. I'm hoping to have it out before the end of the month as it is somewhat seasonal. Okay, it's completely seasonal. Stay tuned for more!

The Great Review (Contest)

Here we are on another Shadow Spinner release day. Today is "Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow."

Of course, it's FREE! today, Thursday, October 18 and tomorrow, Friday, October 19. Make sure you pick it up! Also, "Part Six: The Man with No Eyes" is also FREE! today only.

Here's something interesting:
I like the idea of switching covers every so often. I mean, when you're doing a serial book, why have the same cover all the way through, right? Why not offer the consumer some variety? Especially when you have someone as talented as Rusty Webb doing your covers! It seemed like a cool idea to me.

Evidently, it wasn't such a good idea. On Monday when I had parts 1-5 available for FREE! there were an undisclosed amount of downloads on parts 1-4 (because I think I'm not supposed to post my actual numbers or Amazon will get upset), but there were only about 25% as many downloads on part 5 as any of the other parts individually. I can think of no other reason for this than that the cover changes at part 5, and the visual recognition just wasn't there. I find it really kind of odd. I had another cover change in mind that would happen around chapter 12 or 13, but, now, I think, maybe, I shouldn't do that. The whole thing is a little disappointing, but it's a good thing to know.

This is the part where I would normally start begging for reviews. I'm growing tired of it, and, if I am, I'm pretty sure you guys are too. But, see, "The Man with No Eyes" is sitting at just one review and "The Cop" at three. I'm starting to feel like little Oliver, "Please, sir, I want some more." Because I do. It's enough to make the idea of purchasing reviews tempting, but, you know, only not, because that still steams my ears. The difficulty of getting people to leave a 20 word review makes me understand the temptation, though. Especially since begging doesn't seem to work. So here is what I'm going to do:

The Great Review Contest!

Between today and, oh, say Sunday, for every review you leave for one of my works, I will put your name in a drawing for a FREE! book. Yes, that's right, a FREE! book, and it doesn't even have to be one of mine. However, there are some qualifications:

1. It must be an independently or self-published work (this includes small publishers). No big, traditional publishers here.
2. It must be an e-book, and
3. It must be for the Kindle or Kindle app.

So go and leave some reviews on any of the Shadow Spinner parts or on The House on the Corner or even for "The Evil That Men Do" or Charter Shorts (which doesn't have a single review!). After you've done that, leave me a comment here to let me know where you've left reviews (and under what name you left them), and I'll mark you down for an entry for each and every review you leave! It's that simple! And, really, 20 words is not that many. I mean, a lot of you are writers, so 20 words should, you know, come out when you sneeze.

I'll announce the winner in Monday's post (which also has a super, secret announcement!). If you win, just let me know what book you want, and I will buy it for you and send it to you. It's as easy as that! ANY BOOK! Well, not any book, but you know what I mean. I hope you do, anyway. It can be one of my books, or it can be any of these great up and coming authors that we all want to support. And, hey, I just did a review on a great book that you could choose!

And just to be clear, I want a real review, meaning an honest review. I'm not offering to buy 5-star reviews here; I just want to get some activity going, so, you know, I'm not gonna secretly mark you off the list if you give me a bad review.

However, if offering incentives to get people to actually stop and leave a review (and click the "like" button) doesn't work, I may have to resort to coming to people's houses. And none of us want that!