As is so often the case with me, I was thinking of something that lead me into thinking about something else entirely and making a connection between the two. Just follow along, and it will all become clear. I hope.
We are all, probably, (somewhat) familiar with the story of how Apple got its start and how no one believed that there would be any interest in the consumer market for the personal computer. We've all learned about how HP and who knows who all else turned down Wozniak and Jobs and how wrong they were for doing so. Short-sighted. Closed minded. Whatever you want to call it. All these guys said, "there's no market for that," and we've derided them for it ever since. I mean, I learned about this as early as 6th grade and continued to have it drilled into my head for the next 12 years, give-or-take, of schooling after that. All the way through my (required) college computer class. Those business guys were just stupid to not see the potential that Wozniak and Jobs were trying to introduce. This has become, in many ways, part of our cultural mythology.
The thing is, though (and here is where my thinking sort of went off track), those guys were not wrong. Yes, I said that. The HP corporate types and all those suits that said "no" were not wrong. There was no market for the home computer. To put it in other terms, the home computer didn't have an audience. Steve Jobs (and Steve Wozniak) created that audience.
And it's kind of amazing when you think about it. I use my computer all the time. It's a tool and a toy, and I can't really imagine trying to get by without it (even if it was nice to be away from it while on vacation (although, in that case, it was that it was nice to be away from the Internet more than the computer itself)). But, looking back, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would have wanted to own a personal computer way back in 1980. They didn't do anything. And, yet, we were enamored of them.
I had one friend who had one (not "one" as in a particular friend, like "I had this one friend," but "one" as in I only knew one person that actually had one), an Apple IIe (I think; It could have been a II+). His parents were doctors, not just regular doctors but some kind of specialized research doctors, and he's the smartest guy I've ever known. Smarter than me (if only by a few points (of course, a few IQ points are huge)). He was in his head all the time and had almost no social skills. I was the only person that could really relate to him when we were in 4th grade (before we got moved away to the school for smart kids), so I was the one that got to go over to his house and "play on the computer." He didn't have any other friends. There was no Windows, only a DOS prompt. There was some game that we played with this little guy that ran around and dug holes and climbed ladders. When we got to 6th grade and had our first computer class (remember, smart kid school; this was the only elementary school computer class in all of Shreveport, possibly in all of Louisiana), I'd go over to his house to test my BASIC program assignments. That's not an adjective, by the way, it's a computer language that I would bet most millennials have never even heard of. We got to write programs that did things like allow us to use the computer as a simple calculator. You know, because, if you didn't write a program for it, you could not use the computer for that!
Do you understand what I'm saying? When the first personal home computers came out, they did... NOTHING! I can't, now, figure out why anyone would have wanted one. And I have no idea what my friend's parents did with theirs. Of course, they were both research scientists, so I'm sure they had uses for it; I just can't imagine them. So, when those corporate suit guys said, "there's no market for that," they weren't wrong. And, yet, they were.
Because Steve Jobs went out and created a market. An audience. And, now, we can't imagine living without the things. Even though your smart phone can do oh so much more than the first personal computers ever dreamed of doing. I'm talking about your phone, here!
Likewise, there was a time when science fiction, as a genre, didn't exist. Imagine if it still didn't and Jules Verne was only just now writing his odd stories about travelling to the moon and into the center of the earth and in the depths of the seas. Publishers would say "there's no audience for that" and they would be right. Verne, along with Wells not too much later, would create the audience.
And, although fantasy did already exist before Tolkien, Tolkien created the fantasy genre as we know it today. He was told, with both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, there is no audience for this. Why? Because there wasn't. It's rather difficult for there to be an audience for something that does not yet exist. Tolkien created his audience.
But, as I said way back up there at the beginning, I was thinking about one thing that lead into a supposedly unrelated thing. That other thing is a conversation in this writing group on Facebook:
An author posed the question of whether it's a "bad idea" to switch from 1st person POV to 3rd person POV in the middle of a story. Of course, I didn't want to just say, "hey, I've done that, so I think it's fine," so I responded from a more neutral stance of asking why the author wanted to do it. Not that I wanted to know but that the author needed to know. Basically, there should be a reason for it beyond just the desire to switch POVs. Later, I said that the author needs to tell the story that she needs to tell it in the way that she needs to tell it (that's what I believe about any story (tell your story)).
What surprised me, though, is the number of people that responded that it is a bad idea and that the reason that it is a bad idea really boiled to "there is no audience for it." Basically, "it's not done that way" meaning that it's not done that way because no one would be interested in that, just like no one would be interested in owning a home computer. Or science fiction. Or fantasy epics.
What gets me here is the lack of willingness, often, in the writing community to try anything new. To go to new places. People look around and say way to often "it's not done that way" meaning "you shouldn't do that." But the rest of the world doesn't really work that way. The rest of the world spends its time looking for the new big thing while the writing world spends its time only looking for only the next big thing. I think this is at the heart of the troubles in the publishing world. When e-books became a thing, a new thing, the publishing world screamed "it's not done that way!" and "there's no audience for that!" Clearly, they were wrong.
But that's beside the point...
The point is that you should never let someone tell you "there's no audience for that" for a thing that has never been tried. Or something that has rarely been tried. I mean, if there's an audience for deep fried pickles, and there is, there's bound to be an audience for anything. And everything. The response, always, to "it's not done that way" should always be "yet." "It's not done that way... yet." So, you know, big deal if there's no audience for what it is you want to do. Go out and make your audience. Create it. Build it.
The thing is is that Wozniak did not build that first computer because he was trying to build something for public consumption; he built it because he was interested in it. He knew that he wanted to have something like that for himself. He didn't really know how many other people would be interested, but he knew he was. Jules Verne didn't start writing his science fiction stories because he looked around and decided that he needed to create a new genre of literature; he wrote the kind of story he wanted to read. The same was true of Tolkien. He wrote, created, what he wanted, what he felt a need for.
The lesson, then, is this for you writers out there: write what you want. Unless you are completely, uniquely idiosyncratic, it's more than likely that there are other people out there that want the same thing you want. So, if you want to switch from 1st person to 3rd and back or... whatever, if it's what you want for your story, do it. Then go create your audience.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Unexpected Applause: Cassastar
So... following on the heels of all the discussion about reviews is... a review. And, probably, this is one I should have gotten to a long time ago, but I have a huge stack of books waiting to be read, so it took a while to get to this.
Alex Cavanaugh is pretty well known in these parts and not without reason. Not only has he written a couple of best selling books, but he's incredibly supportive of other writers. His name gets around. But we're not here to look at the author but his book. His first book, that is: Cassastar.
As usual, let's look at the technicals first:
This is easily one of the best edited small or independently published books I've seen. In the top 3, for sure. I wouldn't know more specifically than that without going through those three books and actually counting up the errors, and I'm not going to spend the time doing that. Although there are a few more toward the end than in the beginning, except for one consistent misspelling of a word by substituting in a homophone for it, all of the mistakes were just things that got missed, like "as" instead of "a" or things like that. There are no consistent punctuation errors at all. Without the rather routine editing issues I've come to expect from independently published works, this became a rather enjoyable read for that alone. I'd give it an A on technicals.
Without getting into the actual plot of the book, I'd say it's a fairly routine space romp. Think Top Gun meets A New Hope with a dash of Battlestar Galactica thrown in for good measure. Of course, Alex does add in his own bits, too, such as the telepathic abilities of the Cassans (and possibly other, more rare, mental abilities that we don't encounter during this first book (well, we do encounter one other, but that would be telling)), and those abilities play a role in what unfolds with the plot, so they're not just icing on the cake, so to speak.
At any rate, the plot is not very complicated or unpredictable, so, if you're looking for some big twist ending or endless convolutions in your plot, you should look somewhere else. Plot-wise, you're going to get a fairly straightforward story. The only real issue with this is that Alex waits to reveal the conflict, or that there is any conflict, until well after the first third of the book. It left me feeling somewhat adrift during Byron's training because it was impossible to tell that anything else was going on other than boot camp.
Of course, the plot is not the point of the story. Cassastar isn't about an interstellar war, it's about the characters, and Mr. Cavanaugh does a very realistic job of drawing his characters and fleshing them out. In fact, there is real character growth in the book, which is not something that's all that common in these days of flashy, all out action all the time. Byron is not the same character at the end of the book as he starts out being. Neither is Bassa. The book is about friendship and how "iron sharpens iron;" the plot is only there to facilitate that journey. In this respect, the book often reminded me of the relationship between Frodo and Samwise in The Lord of the Rings. It's all very British feeling.
It's a solid job of story telling. Good characters. Good action. A nice, entertaining read. There's enough to it to make it above average, and, coupled with the lack of grammar issues, I'd give it a nice, solid "B." It's not great or earth-shattering, but it is good entertainment with some insight into "humanity" thrown in to make it worth the time.
Alex Cavanaugh is pretty well known in these parts and not without reason. Not only has he written a couple of best selling books, but he's incredibly supportive of other writers. His name gets around. But we're not here to look at the author but his book. His first book, that is: Cassastar.
This is easily one of the best edited small or independently published books I've seen. In the top 3, for sure. I wouldn't know more specifically than that without going through those three books and actually counting up the errors, and I'm not going to spend the time doing that. Although there are a few more toward the end than in the beginning, except for one consistent misspelling of a word by substituting in a homophone for it, all of the mistakes were just things that got missed, like "as" instead of "a" or things like that. There are no consistent punctuation errors at all. Without the rather routine editing issues I've come to expect from independently published works, this became a rather enjoyable read for that alone. I'd give it an A on technicals.
Without getting into the actual plot of the book, I'd say it's a fairly routine space romp. Think Top Gun meets A New Hope with a dash of Battlestar Galactica thrown in for good measure. Of course, Alex does add in his own bits, too, such as the telepathic abilities of the Cassans (and possibly other, more rare, mental abilities that we don't encounter during this first book (well, we do encounter one other, but that would be telling)), and those abilities play a role in what unfolds with the plot, so they're not just icing on the cake, so to speak.
At any rate, the plot is not very complicated or unpredictable, so, if you're looking for some big twist ending or endless convolutions in your plot, you should look somewhere else. Plot-wise, you're going to get a fairly straightforward story. The only real issue with this is that Alex waits to reveal the conflict, or that there is any conflict, until well after the first third of the book. It left me feeling somewhat adrift during Byron's training because it was impossible to tell that anything else was going on other than boot camp.
Of course, the plot is not the point of the story. Cassastar isn't about an interstellar war, it's about the characters, and Mr. Cavanaugh does a very realistic job of drawing his characters and fleshing them out. In fact, there is real character growth in the book, which is not something that's all that common in these days of flashy, all out action all the time. Byron is not the same character at the end of the book as he starts out being. Neither is Bassa. The book is about friendship and how "iron sharpens iron;" the plot is only there to facilitate that journey. In this respect, the book often reminded me of the relationship between Frodo and Samwise in The Lord of the Rings. It's all very British feeling.
It's a solid job of story telling. Good characters. Good action. A nice, entertaining read. There's enough to it to make it above average, and, coupled with the lack of grammar issues, I'd give it a nice, solid "B." It's not great or earth-shattering, but it is good entertainment with some insight into "humanity" thrown in to make it worth the time.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Is It Better To Be "Nice" Or Honest? Part Two
I'm guest posting today over at Arlee Bird's Tossing It Out on the topic of reviews for "Indie" authors. We agreed that the topic was big enough for more than one post, so I'm continuing what I started over there over here. You should really pop over and read part one, first, though, before reading this one.
[One a completely separate note, I also have an interview up today over at the A to Z Challenge blog, stop by and check that out, too.]
[One a completely separate note, I also have an interview up today over at the A to Z Challenge blog, stop by and check that out, too.]
To
bring the impact of the “nice” review down to a more personal
level, when the the independent market suffers the effects of
undeserved good reviews, so do you.
Let me
put this another way: The only way you can ever become successful as
an independent author is if the larger audience of readers begins to
buy your books. It's all well and good for your blogging friends and
a few of their friends to buy your book, but, really, that's just a
handful of sales. To make it, to really make it, you have to break
through the “friend” barrier out into people that don't know you.
That is a hard thing to do.
You
want to know why it's a hard thing to do? Because the larger audience
of readers doesn't trust the independent market. They don't even
really trust the small publishers, so how do you expect them to trust
you, some anonymous author with a sign saying, “Buy my book! It's
really good!”
See,
when we just do the “nice” thing and give good reviews to our
peers, the independent market suffers, as I said, but, also, you,
specifically you, as an
independently published author, suffer. You are not immune to the
overall perception that people will have of a market place full of
good reviews that don't mean anything.
You want to know how I know this? Because I don't buy independently
published books except from people I know or that have been strongly
recommended to me by people whose opinions I trust. Why? Because I
can't tell what's good and what's not. And, even then, half the stuff
(and I'm being generous here) I've read from people I know or has
been recommended to me shouldn't be out there available for purchase,
anyway, so why would I expect that other stuff is any different. But,
yet, I can browse through the "indie book shelf" (yes, I just made that up) and find plenty of books with a stack of
good reviews (on Amazon or on blogs) that I know to be... dishonest,
for lack of a better word. In some cases, I don't think the person
giving the review even read the book, because the review is about the
author not the work.
A
review beginning with “this is a great guy” or “I went to high
school with this guy and he wrote a book” or “this girl spends
all of her time writing” does not inspire me to buy the book or
give me any faith in the independent market. If you didn't read it,
don't go click 5-stars on it! Just don't do it.
To
make this as clear as I can, it doesn't matter if you genuinely have
written a great book, the best book ever, even, if no one can find
it. It's like being the one apple tree in the middle of a forest of
crab apple trees. The only way to be seen in all of that other mess
is if reviews, all reviews, are honest reviews and are clearly labeled “crab
apple” instead of “apple.”
So
far, we've been pretty self-centered and only talked about how all of
this stuff affects ourselves, but let's look at how the “nice”
review affects the author in question. Does the “nice” review
actually help him/her? Again, I'm going to say “no.”
Sure,
as I said in Part One, getting the “nice” review may gain the
author a few sales, but, if the book is really not good or not ready
or not whatever, it's going to hurt the author more in the long run.
First,
people buying the book are going to find “oh, this book sucks”
and decide to never buy another book from that author again. It
doesn't matter if, later, the author does put out something good, why
would a buyer (that doesn't know the author) come back and try again
after getting burned once? Most people are just going to remember to
not buy anything from him/her again (like I won't buy any more
Goodkin or Hamilton, I don't care how good people say they are).
But
what's the likelihood that the author is going to improve if everyone
is just being nice? The author, at that point, believes that the work
is fine and s/he can continue in the same manner. I've seen a lot of
this out there, too. Authors that whip out some 40,000 word "epic" in a
couple or few months, get some nice reviews and continue on doing the
same. Over and over again. Their friends are all giving them good
reviews and telling them how great they are, so they never bother to
actually look at the work or how much (little) time they're spending on it.
They don't edit beyond spell check or have anyone with any kind of
skill read the manuscript before they hit the publish button.
These
authors think everything is just fine. “Look at how all my friends
love what I'm doing!” But no one is buying their books. Why?
Because they're no good. But no one is brave enough to tell them
that. No one wants to damage the friendship by saying, “Hey, you
need to work on this some more.” Again, it's a short term gain, but
it's kind of like allowing your friend to walk around with a huge
booger on his/her face. Sure, s/he'd be embarrassed if you told him,
but how mad at you is she going to be when she finds out that you
didn't.
Doing
the “nice” thing doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the market,
it doesn't help you, and it doesn't help the author in question. Not
in the long run. Yeah, I know, it can be really difficult to see past
the short run to the long run, but, if we want independent publishing
to survive, we have to do that. Right now, the big publishers are out
there banking on one thing, that this lack of quality among independently
published books will drive people back to only buying from them. The
sad thing is they may not be wrong. Until we, the independent
authors, have the courage and fortitude to be honest about what we're
flooding the market with, people will continue to orbit the big
publishers as their main source of reading material.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Are You Brave Enough?
As all Pixar movies, Brave is a beautiful piece of work. The landscapes are gorgeous. The animation excellent. The characters interesting. Despite all of that, I was left slightly unsatisfied at the end of the movie.
It's not that it wasn't a good movie; it was. It was very good. But, I guess, I was just expecting something a little bit more from Pixar, because, in the end, it turns out to be a pretty typical kid-oriented fantasy movie. It's the kind of thing where the kid makes a bad decision but gets rewarded for it anyway. Basically, parents are always wrong and if they would just open their eyes and take a look at you and how deserving you are to have your way then they would just see that that's true and let you have your way. Of course, it's not that simple in these kinds of movies, and the kid has to make a big mistake for the parent to actually take a look at the kid and, instead of the kid having to deal with any consequences of his/her actions, s/he's able to put everything right which enables the parent to say, "Oh, you were right all along. Here, have everything you always wanted."
And this is the unfair bit, I suppose, because, if this movie had been from anyone but Pixar, I would have been fine with it. Not that I would have thought it was a better movie, but I wouldn't have been left with a feeling of disappointment. As it is, though, Pixar has been pretty good about taking that next step in dealing with personal responsibility. They've had characters that have worked through difficult issues, looked at their own behavior, and come out stronger and more mature individuals on the other side (with the exception of Wall-E, which I thought was cute but a bit heavy handed with its message and lacking in the personal growth department (even Cars 2 had a strong dose of personal growth)). The character of Merida does not come out a stronger and more mature person on the other side. She may appreciate her mother a bit more, but, in essence, she's the same at the end as she was at the beginning.
To make matters worse, the whole movie revolves around the question, "Are you brave enough?" Are you brave enough to change your own fate? It's a good question, and it sounds like a Pixar question. So I went into it expecting the heroine to do just that, to be brave and change her fate. But that's not what happens. At no point does she take the brave stance to change her fate. Instead, she runs away and makes a bad choice. It felt very The Little Mermaid to me.
I find it more than a little ironic that Pixar, a movie company known for their "bravery" in movie making, took the less than courageous route in a movie about being brave and taking your fate in your own hands.
Which makes me wonder about the influence Disney is having over them. Pixar kept their own studio headquarters up here near San Francisco when Disney bought them. The idea behind that was so that they could keep their autonomy. Do their own thing. Continue to make the movies they'd been know for. But I'm not sure that's happening. Last summer's Cars 2, which I liked, is considered Pixar's first failure for its overt merchandising. A movie short on story for the sake of being flashy and selling a lot of stuff. That's so very... Disney. And, honestly, even with the stronger than typical female lead, Brave felt much like a typical Disney "Princess" movie. Even Toy Story 3 was pushed through by Disney. Actually, because Disney owned the rights to any Toy Story sequels, they were going to make the movie without Pixar's involvement at all, but after their Pixar acquisition, Pixar took control of it and started completely over on the project (and thank goodness for that!).
Maybe it's just the lack of John Lasseter. With the acquisition by Disney and his expanded role as chief creative officer for both Disney and Pixar (along with a handful of other duties (which included the creation of the new Cars theme park at Disneyland)), he's had to be much less involved in the individual projects at Pixar, and it was always Lasseter that was the real heart of Pixar. It was his vision that created Pixar, took it from a failing animation department that George Lucas sold to Steve Jobs and Jobs was considering selling off to Microsoft (or anyone that would take it, really) and turned it into the most profitable movie studio ever (they currently have the highest average box office take across all of their movies of any movie studio). Is it that Lasseter's vision for Pixar has been removed or diluted, or is it that he's finally bought into Disney's way of doing things? I'm hoping with his more direct involvement with next summer's Monsters University that we'll see a return to what is more expected from a Pixar movie.
All of that said, my kids loved Brave, and that's really what matters. As I said, it is a good movie. If it had come out under the Disney banner rather than Pixar, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it. In fact, I would have applauded them for providing a female lead that did not need a man to "complete" her, but from Pixar... well, it just fell short of expectations.
It's not that it wasn't a good movie; it was. It was very good. But, I guess, I was just expecting something a little bit more from Pixar, because, in the end, it turns out to be a pretty typical kid-oriented fantasy movie. It's the kind of thing where the kid makes a bad decision but gets rewarded for it anyway. Basically, parents are always wrong and if they would just open their eyes and take a look at you and how deserving you are to have your way then they would just see that that's true and let you have your way. Of course, it's not that simple in these kinds of movies, and the kid has to make a big mistake for the parent to actually take a look at the kid and, instead of the kid having to deal with any consequences of his/her actions, s/he's able to put everything right which enables the parent to say, "Oh, you were right all along. Here, have everything you always wanted."
And this is the unfair bit, I suppose, because, if this movie had been from anyone but Pixar, I would have been fine with it. Not that I would have thought it was a better movie, but I wouldn't have been left with a feeling of disappointment. As it is, though, Pixar has been pretty good about taking that next step in dealing with personal responsibility. They've had characters that have worked through difficult issues, looked at their own behavior, and come out stronger and more mature individuals on the other side (with the exception of Wall-E, which I thought was cute but a bit heavy handed with its message and lacking in the personal growth department (even Cars 2 had a strong dose of personal growth)). The character of Merida does not come out a stronger and more mature person on the other side. She may appreciate her mother a bit more, but, in essence, she's the same at the end as she was at the beginning.
To make matters worse, the whole movie revolves around the question, "Are you brave enough?" Are you brave enough to change your own fate? It's a good question, and it sounds like a Pixar question. So I went into it expecting the heroine to do just that, to be brave and change her fate. But that's not what happens. At no point does she take the brave stance to change her fate. Instead, she runs away and makes a bad choice. It felt very The Little Mermaid to me.
I find it more than a little ironic that Pixar, a movie company known for their "bravery" in movie making, took the less than courageous route in a movie about being brave and taking your fate in your own hands.
Which makes me wonder about the influence Disney is having over them. Pixar kept their own studio headquarters up here near San Francisco when Disney bought them. The idea behind that was so that they could keep their autonomy. Do their own thing. Continue to make the movies they'd been know for. But I'm not sure that's happening. Last summer's Cars 2, which I liked, is considered Pixar's first failure for its overt merchandising. A movie short on story for the sake of being flashy and selling a lot of stuff. That's so very... Disney. And, honestly, even with the stronger than typical female lead, Brave felt much like a typical Disney "Princess" movie. Even Toy Story 3 was pushed through by Disney. Actually, because Disney owned the rights to any Toy Story sequels, they were going to make the movie without Pixar's involvement at all, but after their Pixar acquisition, Pixar took control of it and started completely over on the project (and thank goodness for that!).
Maybe it's just the lack of John Lasseter. With the acquisition by Disney and his expanded role as chief creative officer for both Disney and Pixar (along with a handful of other duties (which included the creation of the new Cars theme park at Disneyland)), he's had to be much less involved in the individual projects at Pixar, and it was always Lasseter that was the real heart of Pixar. It was his vision that created Pixar, took it from a failing animation department that George Lucas sold to Steve Jobs and Jobs was considering selling off to Microsoft (or anyone that would take it, really) and turned it into the most profitable movie studio ever (they currently have the highest average box office take across all of their movies of any movie studio). Is it that Lasseter's vision for Pixar has been removed or diluted, or is it that he's finally bought into Disney's way of doing things? I'm hoping with his more direct involvement with next summer's Monsters University that we'll see a return to what is more expected from a Pixar movie.
All of that said, my kids loved Brave, and that's really what matters. As I said, it is a good movie. If it had come out under the Disney banner rather than Pixar, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it. In fact, I would have applauded them for providing a female lead that did not need a man to "complete" her, but from Pixar... well, it just fell short of expectations.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Order Your House Online!
Not to re-visit the days of when we were moving last fall, but moving sucks. I mean, the moving itself sucks, but, worse than that, the process of buying a house sucks. One of the things I said somewhat frequently while we were in the house hunting stage was "why can't we just buy a house online?" I was somewhat serious about that, too. I mean, you can buy virtually everything online. You can even buy a car online. Why not a house?
Don't get me wrong, I understand why you can't buy a house online, but I don't like it. When we had to get a new car, I wanted to want to buy that online, too, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. A car is expensive enough that I wanted to "feel" the car before deciding on it. We did look at options online, but, in the end, we went down to the dealership and checked out the cars and test drove and all of that stuff. I can't imagine, in that sense, actually buying a house online. I'd need to go "feel" it, too.
Except the process of looking for a house is so horrid, there should be some kind of process for it online! There just should be.
A few months ago, while watching a period show with my wife, she said something along the lines of "I bet those are Sears catalog homes" about a neighborhood in the show. I had to pause the show and say "what?" Then, after she explained, I had to say "what the heck!"
Because, see, before there was the Internet, you could buy your home online. Okay, so not online, but from a catalog. Seriously. Sears offered houses, HOUSES, in their famous Sears catalog.
We all know about the Sears catalog, right? Who, growing up in the 70s and 80s, didn't await the Sears catalog with great anticipation every winter so s/he could sit down with it and circle all the toys s/he wanted for Christmas? That's what I though. Maybe some kids still do that? I kind of doubt it. I only know that my kids don't because we don't get the Sears catalog nor do we shop very often at Sears (which I'm sure is a part of why Sears is having... issues... these days). But we USED to love the Sears catalog and "window" shopping in it. Back before the days of the Internet changed all of that.
At any rate, back in the day, specifically the days between 1908 and 1940, you could order a house from Sears' Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans. To make it even more amazing, the price for a house was as low as $650! Yes, less than $1000! And the most expensive plan was only $2500! At least, in 1908, those were the prices. Yeah, so you had to own a piece of land to put the house on, but, oh my gosh, you could just flip through a CATALOG and pick out the floor plan you liked best and order your house. They'd deliver it right to your non-existent doorstep, pre-assembled and ready to be put together. Mostly, you could even do it yourself with friends and relatives much like an old-fashioned barn raising. This Is Amazing! And I want it to come back.
Okay, so it may have to wait until we start colonizing other planets and there is, once again, plenty of land available for cheap for people to build on, but, still, this is such an amazing thing!
As great as I think it is to be able to order your house from a catalog, to be able to pick a floor plan and choose your bits and pieces to fit that floor plan, customize that floor plan into something that is you; I don't think it's such a great idea in writing. Not that it can't be done successfully. Plenty of people do it: write by formula. Plenty of people enjoy reading it, too. I just don't enjoy it. It can be kind of interesting to see how people make the formula their own, but, in the end, I generally feel like "I've been in this house before." Unless you've done some pretty spectacular job at customization, it gets a little boring wandering through the same old floor plan over and over again.
Honestly, I feel that way about houses, too. If I could, I would design the general layout of my house myself. The thing I want out of a house is not something you can buy anywhere today (but that's a different topic). There is no existing layout for what I want. It's not the big house in the woods kind of thing. Or the big house on the hill. Or any of the "big house" ideas that most people have about big houses. It's so much not that that my wife was actually surprised by what I want out of a house. I want the same kind of thing out of my writing. I don't think I'm there, yet, but I am working on it. I think, based on the number of people who have said things like "that's not what I expected (but in a good way)" about my book, The House on the Corner, I'm getting there, but I'm not all the way there.
Still, the idea of being able to order a house online is awesome. Until I have the resources to design my own house, I'm all for the idea of the catalog house!
[Oh, and just to mention it, Sears wasn't the only company that sold catalog houses, just the most well known.]
Don't get me wrong, I understand why you can't buy a house online, but I don't like it. When we had to get a new car, I wanted to want to buy that online, too, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. A car is expensive enough that I wanted to "feel" the car before deciding on it. We did look at options online, but, in the end, we went down to the dealership and checked out the cars and test drove and all of that stuff. I can't imagine, in that sense, actually buying a house online. I'd need to go "feel" it, too.
Except the process of looking for a house is so horrid, there should be some kind of process for it online! There just should be.
A few months ago, while watching a period show with my wife, she said something along the lines of "I bet those are Sears catalog homes" about a neighborhood in the show. I had to pause the show and say "what?" Then, after she explained, I had to say "what the heck!"
Because, see, before there was the Internet, you could buy your home online. Okay, so not online, but from a catalog. Seriously. Sears offered houses, HOUSES, in their famous Sears catalog.
We all know about the Sears catalog, right? Who, growing up in the 70s and 80s, didn't await the Sears catalog with great anticipation every winter so s/he could sit down with it and circle all the toys s/he wanted for Christmas? That's what I though. Maybe some kids still do that? I kind of doubt it. I only know that my kids don't because we don't get the Sears catalog nor do we shop very often at Sears (which I'm sure is a part of why Sears is having... issues... these days). But we USED to love the Sears catalog and "window" shopping in it. Back before the days of the Internet changed all of that.
At any rate, back in the day, specifically the days between 1908 and 1940, you could order a house from Sears' Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans. To make it even more amazing, the price for a house was as low as $650! Yes, less than $1000! And the most expensive plan was only $2500! At least, in 1908, those were the prices. Yeah, so you had to own a piece of land to put the house on, but, oh my gosh, you could just flip through a CATALOG and pick out the floor plan you liked best and order your house. They'd deliver it right to your non-existent doorstep, pre-assembled and ready to be put together. Mostly, you could even do it yourself with friends and relatives much like an old-fashioned barn raising. This Is Amazing! And I want it to come back.
Okay, so it may have to wait until we start colonizing other planets and there is, once again, plenty of land available for cheap for people to build on, but, still, this is such an amazing thing!
As great as I think it is to be able to order your house from a catalog, to be able to pick a floor plan and choose your bits and pieces to fit that floor plan, customize that floor plan into something that is you; I don't think it's such a great idea in writing. Not that it can't be done successfully. Plenty of people do it: write by formula. Plenty of people enjoy reading it, too. I just don't enjoy it. It can be kind of interesting to see how people make the formula their own, but, in the end, I generally feel like "I've been in this house before." Unless you've done some pretty spectacular job at customization, it gets a little boring wandering through the same old floor plan over and over again.
Honestly, I feel that way about houses, too. If I could, I would design the general layout of my house myself. The thing I want out of a house is not something you can buy anywhere today (but that's a different topic). There is no existing layout for what I want. It's not the big house in the woods kind of thing. Or the big house on the hill. Or any of the "big house" ideas that most people have about big houses. It's so much not that that my wife was actually surprised by what I want out of a house. I want the same kind of thing out of my writing. I don't think I'm there, yet, but I am working on it. I think, based on the number of people who have said things like "that's not what I expected (but in a good way)" about my book, The House on the Corner, I'm getting there, but I'm not all the way there.
Still, the idea of being able to order a house online is awesome. Until I have the resources to design my own house, I'm all for the idea of the catalog house!
[Oh, and just to mention it, Sears wasn't the only company that sold catalog houses, just the most well known.]
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Let's go on Vacation! Part 1: The Place
Last week, I went on vacation. In many ways, it was the first real vacation I've ever been on. Not that I've never been on a vacation before; there was my honeymoon almost 14 years ago, but, for some reason, a honeymoon doesn't feel like a "vacation" to me. And there was one other family vacation about 6 years ago, but that one, also, did not feel like a vacation. Probably because my kids were too young. I took them on vacation, but I didn't get one out of that deal. But this one... this one was good.
It was up at Trinity Lake in the Trinity Alps. We stayed at the Trinity Lakes KOA and rented a cabin.
It was up at Trinity Lake in the Trinity Alps. We stayed at the Trinity Lakes KOA and rented a cabin.
Our cabin, which is, evidently, their "best" cabin, although we didn't know that ahead of time.
The view up the road to our cabin which is down at the end.
The view out of our bedroom window.
The general area as seen from the lake.
I'm not really much for camping. I'm sure that goes back to a traumatic camping event from middle school (story for another time (yeah, I know I'm always saying that and never getting to those "another times," but no one ever reminds me!)), but I've discovered that cabin camping is pretty good. Actually, it was kind of the only way I would consent to go camping. Not that I said it that way, and I would have gone even without renting a cabin, but I wouldn't have really enjoyed myself. In the cabin, though... it was good.
And there was a deck with a picnic table and, down below it, a creek. We kept the window open in the bedroom all the so that we could hear the creek at night. Oh, it was so nice. And sitting out on deck in the mornings with my mocha (sometimes while writing) was... incredible. Other than being repeatedly interrupted by one of my children (who shall remain unnamed), it was possibly the most peaceful thing I've ever experienced.
A view down to the creek from the deck. Yes, I know you can't see the creek. Listen carefully, and, maybe, you can hear it.
So that's the overview. Tall trees, big mountains, bubbling water. No Internet. No outside connections at all. That's a nice thing about not owning a cell phone or iDevice. And no withdrawal symptoms, either, which was somewhat surprising but not at all unpleasant.
Yes, yes, you may envy me now. We are tentatively planning to go back next year. I'm already looking forward to it.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Morality Police
So... this is going to be kind of a different post for me. Only kind of, though. My wife thinks I should leave the topic alone since this really isn't what my blog is about, but I will relate it to what my blog is about at the end so as to take care of that issue as much as I can. I want to state that I am not making a statement about any group in particular, so this is not a religious attack or a political attack or anything like that. It's about certain kinds of people, and they cover the spectrum of groups. This is a behavior, though, that infuriates me wherever I see it, and, since I see a lot of it in the publishing industry, I'm going to go ahead and talk about it.
A couple of months ago, I was listening to the radio. I'll point out here that I generally listen to the local Christian radio station; I just can't deal with secular radio in large doses, because it's all the same superficial crap, and, even though I like songs here and there, overall, it kind of turns my stomach. I just don't need that many songs about sex. At least not in the way pop music talks about it. Sure, some of the Christian stuff is superficial, too, but at least it's superficial in a way that's trying to say something more than "I want your sex."
Anyway...
It was a Sunday night, and I was heading to the grocery store. Sunday night is a non-music time on the station, but the grocery store isn't very far, so I didn't feel like trying to find something else to listen to or digging out a CD because I'd be there by the time I found something else. They were having a special broadcast about the growing issue of human trafficking. Don't get me wrong, I'm against human trafficking. Owning people is not okay, and requiring of people to do things against their will is even worse (no, I'm not talking about your job, because you do have your job because you are choosing to have your job). But the guy said two things that really pissed me off:
1. The number of people in slavery today is the highest it's ever been in history.
Okay, this may be true, and I haven't tried to look this up, but I would bet the percentage of people in slavery is, if not the lowest, close to the lowest it's ever been. This is taking a fact and twisting it to say something that doesn't really reflect the truth, and that always bothers me. It's just not okay to misrepresent facts to make your point. I don't care who you are or how worthy your cause. Just don't do it!
2. "Jesus wouldn't stand for this" (if he was here today).
I don't care how bad human trafficking is, this is just a false statement, and it's this guy projecting what he believes into some inaccurate view of who Jesus was and is. Historically, whether you accept the Bible as historical fact or not, you can see that Jesus did, in fact, stand for human trafficking. Slavery was a norm in his day, and he never took a stance against it. In fact, he said of the slave "obey your master." If Jesus didn't take a stance against human trafficking while he was on the Earth previously, why would he take a stance against it today? The statement this guy made is blatantly false and meant to cause an emotional reaction in his audience to achieve his own goals. And I don't care, at that point, if his goals are good because what he's doing is wrong.
And this kind of crap is all over the place these days in all kinds of forms, and it just makes me sick.
First of all, although I believe all people should be free, not all people believe that all people should be free including some people who are slaves. It is still common practice in many parts of the world for people to sell themselves into slavery of their own free will. How can I come in and tell a guy, just because I believe it's wrong, that he shouldn't sell himself into slavery. He shouldn't sell someone else into slavery (unless that person is voluntarily submitting), but me trying to tell him he's wrong in his own choice is as bad as selling someone into slavery against his will. My job is not be the morality policeman.
In fact, it is no one's job to be the morality police, and I'm tired of people trying to take that upon themselves. I'm tired of it from politicians, and I'm especially tired of it from various religious quarters (not just in the USA) but most especially from people that call themselves Christians. To Christians, I can only say go read your Bible and show me where Jesus said for his followers to be the Morality Police for the world. Really, if you think it's your job to tell me how I should be living my life, go look. Do it now. While you're doing it, I'll go about living my life, because you're going to be gone a long, long time, because it's NOT in there!
Jesus said three things that are important. Okay, wait, he said a lot more than three things that are important, but he said three things that have direct bearing on this and are probably the most important things he said. First, when asked by the Pharisees (the religious legalists of the day) what was the most important of the commandments, He answered with something that's not quite one of the commandments (not that it's not, but it's not stated as explicitly anywhere else as the way Jesus states it):
1. Love God with your whole being. [This is not the quote. This is a simpler paraphrase of the quote.]
This is thing that Jesus is saying is the most important thing that we humans can do. Nowhere in that statement does it say to go out and tell other people how they ought to be behaving and what they should be doing or how they ought to be loving God.
Then he said the second thing following right on the heels of the first thing:
2. Love your neighbor [love your fellow man] as yourself.
And here is where the Golden Rule comes from: treat other people the way you yourself want to be treated. Now, I'm just saying here, but most people don't like to be beaten over the head all the time and told how they should act. That means don't try to make it illegal for me to eat yams just because you don't like them. Also, don't try to legislate that I need to eat lobster just because you do like it. Leave me to not eat any lobster. More for you.
The third thing he said later:
3. People will know who my followers (Christians, hypothetically) are by their love.
By their LOVE. And I just don't see a whole lot of love coming from the Right these days. Or from the Left for that matter. Treating people with love does not include calling them names on television or taking them out back and beating them near to death or any number of other things that happen on a regular basis these days. STOP doing that crap!
I want to be clear, here, that I am not aiming what I'm saying here just at Christians (I am one); these problems are fairly endemic; however, I hold Christians to a higher standard because, supposedly, they have someone that left them pretty explicit instructions on how to live and how to behave, and if they would just read the book they say they follow they might learn a few things. People who are not Christians did not have someone leave them a book of instructions on how to behave, and, yet, somehow, they often behave better than Christians do. What was it Gandhi said, "I would be a Christian except for Christians"? That is one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life. I bet he'd read the book!
Jesus set us to be EXAMPLES, not enforcers. It's not our job, it's not anyone's job, to make people behave in a certain way. It is only our job to live in such a way as to be an example to other people as to what might be a better way to live. The government and the law have the responsibility to enforce behavior, and that should be limited to keeping us from doing things to other people against their will. Things like:
Don't speed, because you might have an accident and kill someone.
Don't kill someone.
Don't take other people's stuff.
Really, the law is here to reinforce that whole "treat other people the way you want to be treated."
Yes, I know I said "Jesus" set us to be examples, because that part was aimed at Christians that think they should be out enforcing their own personal version of the truth, but, really, that's how we should all live. Set an example by living a life that other people can admire, not going around whacking people with sticks when we think they've crossed some line they don't see or believe exists.
The only time we have the right to get involved in how someone else is living their life is if that person is inflicting his/her will on someone else against that person's will. In those cases, it's not even that we have the right to get involved, but we should get involved. So, if you see someone beating the crap out of someone else, you should have the moral imperative to get involved. Then you have the right to tell someone to stop behaving in a particular manner. If there's a question as to whether whatever is happening is happening voluntarily, find out, but, generally speaking, I think it's pretty easy to tell when someone needs to be stopped from doing something to someone else. Don't stand by and let the old pervert take the little boy into the shower (I'm sorry, but the more that comes out about that man and how many people didn't say anything...).
But I said all of this relates to publishing, and you're probably wondering, at this point, how in the world could any of this relate to publishing and writing and, yes, even reading, but it does! Because traditional publishers and agents and all of those people spend their time treating writers just like all of these religious people and politicians trying to force us to live by some code that we don't necessarily buy into.
1. Don't use adverbs.
2. Don't use prologues.
3. Don't write more than 80,000 words.
4. Don't self-publish!
5. E-books are bad! (Unless they're from us and we're charging you more for them than physical books. And, while you're at it, why don't you just give us some more free money.)
They, the traditional publishers, are the same kind of bullies as all these politicians on TV calling people names for believing something that doesn't feed into what they want you to believe. For believing something that gives you the power instead of them. Because, yes, telling me, as a writer, that I shouldn't have the freedom to self-publish my book or that I am "bad" for doing so is just like telling a woman that she is wrong for wanting to use birth control. I don't need some rich publisher somewhere telling me that I shouldn't have the freedom to make my own choices, especially when what they want is to make me a slave against my will.
But, you know, for those of you out there that want and are choosing to sell yourself and your book into slavery to a big publisher, that is your right and choice to do so. I hope it works out for you.
All of this comes down to freedom. People in power don't really like "regular" people to be free. Politicians don't like it. Religious leaders don't like it. Big publishing houses don't like it. They want us all lined up submitting to slavery, and they most often don't really care if it's voluntary or not. But, you know, the Declaration of Independence has that great statement in it that liberty, that freedom, is a Right. Within that, I suppose, is the freedom to submit to chains from other people or to elect people that will bring out more and more chains for all of us, but, really, growing up in a land where freedom is held in such esteem, I can't understand why anyone would want to go back to being a slave. Be free! And, what's more, allow other people to be free, too!
No more Morality Police.
A couple of months ago, I was listening to the radio. I'll point out here that I generally listen to the local Christian radio station; I just can't deal with secular radio in large doses, because it's all the same superficial crap, and, even though I like songs here and there, overall, it kind of turns my stomach. I just don't need that many songs about sex. At least not in the way pop music talks about it. Sure, some of the Christian stuff is superficial, too, but at least it's superficial in a way that's trying to say something more than "I want your sex."
Anyway...
It was a Sunday night, and I was heading to the grocery store. Sunday night is a non-music time on the station, but the grocery store isn't very far, so I didn't feel like trying to find something else to listen to or digging out a CD because I'd be there by the time I found something else. They were having a special broadcast about the growing issue of human trafficking. Don't get me wrong, I'm against human trafficking. Owning people is not okay, and requiring of people to do things against their will is even worse (no, I'm not talking about your job, because you do have your job because you are choosing to have your job). But the guy said two things that really pissed me off:
1. The number of people in slavery today is the highest it's ever been in history.
Okay, this may be true, and I haven't tried to look this up, but I would bet the percentage of people in slavery is, if not the lowest, close to the lowest it's ever been. This is taking a fact and twisting it to say something that doesn't really reflect the truth, and that always bothers me. It's just not okay to misrepresent facts to make your point. I don't care who you are or how worthy your cause. Just don't do it!
2. "Jesus wouldn't stand for this" (if he was here today).
I don't care how bad human trafficking is, this is just a false statement, and it's this guy projecting what he believes into some inaccurate view of who Jesus was and is. Historically, whether you accept the Bible as historical fact or not, you can see that Jesus did, in fact, stand for human trafficking. Slavery was a norm in his day, and he never took a stance against it. In fact, he said of the slave "obey your master." If Jesus didn't take a stance against human trafficking while he was on the Earth previously, why would he take a stance against it today? The statement this guy made is blatantly false and meant to cause an emotional reaction in his audience to achieve his own goals. And I don't care, at that point, if his goals are good because what he's doing is wrong.
And this kind of crap is all over the place these days in all kinds of forms, and it just makes me sick.
First of all, although I believe all people should be free, not all people believe that all people should be free including some people who are slaves. It is still common practice in many parts of the world for people to sell themselves into slavery of their own free will. How can I come in and tell a guy, just because I believe it's wrong, that he shouldn't sell himself into slavery. He shouldn't sell someone else into slavery (unless that person is voluntarily submitting), but me trying to tell him he's wrong in his own choice is as bad as selling someone into slavery against his will. My job is not be the morality policeman.
In fact, it is no one's job to be the morality police, and I'm tired of people trying to take that upon themselves. I'm tired of it from politicians, and I'm especially tired of it from various religious quarters (not just in the USA) but most especially from people that call themselves Christians. To Christians, I can only say go read your Bible and show me where Jesus said for his followers to be the Morality Police for the world. Really, if you think it's your job to tell me how I should be living my life, go look. Do it now. While you're doing it, I'll go about living my life, because you're going to be gone a long, long time, because it's NOT in there!
Jesus said three things that are important. Okay, wait, he said a lot more than three things that are important, but he said three things that have direct bearing on this and are probably the most important things he said. First, when asked by the Pharisees (the religious legalists of the day) what was the most important of the commandments, He answered with something that's not quite one of the commandments (not that it's not, but it's not stated as explicitly anywhere else as the way Jesus states it):
1. Love God with your whole being. [This is not the quote. This is a simpler paraphrase of the quote.]
This is thing that Jesus is saying is the most important thing that we humans can do. Nowhere in that statement does it say to go out and tell other people how they ought to be behaving and what they should be doing or how they ought to be loving God.
Then he said the second thing following right on the heels of the first thing:
2. Love your neighbor [love your fellow man] as yourself.
And here is where the Golden Rule comes from: treat other people the way you yourself want to be treated. Now, I'm just saying here, but most people don't like to be beaten over the head all the time and told how they should act. That means don't try to make it illegal for me to eat yams just because you don't like them. Also, don't try to legislate that I need to eat lobster just because you do like it. Leave me to not eat any lobster. More for you.
The third thing he said later:
3. People will know who my followers (Christians, hypothetically) are by their love.
By their LOVE. And I just don't see a whole lot of love coming from the Right these days. Or from the Left for that matter. Treating people with love does not include calling them names on television or taking them out back and beating them near to death or any number of other things that happen on a regular basis these days. STOP doing that crap!
I want to be clear, here, that I am not aiming what I'm saying here just at Christians (I am one); these problems are fairly endemic; however, I hold Christians to a higher standard because, supposedly, they have someone that left them pretty explicit instructions on how to live and how to behave, and if they would just read the book they say they follow they might learn a few things. People who are not Christians did not have someone leave them a book of instructions on how to behave, and, yet, somehow, they often behave better than Christians do. What was it Gandhi said, "I would be a Christian except for Christians"? That is one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life. I bet he'd read the book!
Jesus set us to be EXAMPLES, not enforcers. It's not our job, it's not anyone's job, to make people behave in a certain way. It is only our job to live in such a way as to be an example to other people as to what might be a better way to live. The government and the law have the responsibility to enforce behavior, and that should be limited to keeping us from doing things to other people against their will. Things like:
Don't speed, because you might have an accident and kill someone.
Don't kill someone.
Don't take other people's stuff.
Really, the law is here to reinforce that whole "treat other people the way you want to be treated."
Yes, I know I said "Jesus" set us to be examples, because that part was aimed at Christians that think they should be out enforcing their own personal version of the truth, but, really, that's how we should all live. Set an example by living a life that other people can admire, not going around whacking people with sticks when we think they've crossed some line they don't see or believe exists.
The only time we have the right to get involved in how someone else is living their life is if that person is inflicting his/her will on someone else against that person's will. In those cases, it's not even that we have the right to get involved, but we should get involved. So, if you see someone beating the crap out of someone else, you should have the moral imperative to get involved. Then you have the right to tell someone to stop behaving in a particular manner. If there's a question as to whether whatever is happening is happening voluntarily, find out, but, generally speaking, I think it's pretty easy to tell when someone needs to be stopped from doing something to someone else. Don't stand by and let the old pervert take the little boy into the shower (I'm sorry, but the more that comes out about that man and how many people didn't say anything...).
But I said all of this relates to publishing, and you're probably wondering, at this point, how in the world could any of this relate to publishing and writing and, yes, even reading, but it does! Because traditional publishers and agents and all of those people spend their time treating writers just like all of these religious people and politicians trying to force us to live by some code that we don't necessarily buy into.
1. Don't use adverbs.
2. Don't use prologues.
3. Don't write more than 80,000 words.
4. Don't self-publish!
5. E-books are bad! (Unless they're from us and we're charging you more for them than physical books. And, while you're at it, why don't you just give us some more free money.)
They, the traditional publishers, are the same kind of bullies as all these politicians on TV calling people names for believing something that doesn't feed into what they want you to believe. For believing something that gives you the power instead of them. Because, yes, telling me, as a writer, that I shouldn't have the freedom to self-publish my book or that I am "bad" for doing so is just like telling a woman that she is wrong for wanting to use birth control. I don't need some rich publisher somewhere telling me that I shouldn't have the freedom to make my own choices, especially when what they want is to make me a slave against my will.
But, you know, for those of you out there that want and are choosing to sell yourself and your book into slavery to a big publisher, that is your right and choice to do so. I hope it works out for you.
All of this comes down to freedom. People in power don't really like "regular" people to be free. Politicians don't like it. Religious leaders don't like it. Big publishing houses don't like it. They want us all lined up submitting to slavery, and they most often don't really care if it's voluntary or not. But, you know, the Declaration of Independence has that great statement in it that liberty, that freedom, is a Right. Within that, I suppose, is the freedom to submit to chains from other people or to elect people that will bring out more and more chains for all of us, but, really, growing up in a land where freedom is held in such esteem, I can't understand why anyone would want to go back to being a slave. Be free! And, what's more, allow other people to be free, too!
No more Morality Police.
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