The company I work for has a yearly summit where everyone in IT gets together and learns about new things and other things that happen at a summit that I'm unfamiliar with because this one coming up will be my first. I'm picturing people discussing the future of iPhones and possibly trying to hold a serious conversation in binary, but I may be overthinking things. While I have no idea what to expect from the summit, I have been clued into one particular tradition, wherein each day a predetermined person gets up in front of the group and gives a 10-15 minute "reflection" which can be about any subject of their choosing. And they have asked me to do the first one this time around. That's right, I'm going to be the opening act. All of my new colleagues (and several of the old ones) will have to suffer through me droning on about something for a quarter of an hour. I should keep from letting this power go to my head. The problem is (and you could probably tell by the title that there would be a problem) I am absolutely rubbish at speaking to crowds. This isn't your normal stage fright. Oh no. This is oh so much more. When I address a group of more than seven or eight people, their faces disappear. Well, that's oversimplifying it a bit much, but the gist is that I lose the ability to differentiate between individuals. I just can't see them. Something happens in my brain and they all become one solid, lumpy "crowd." You can see how this might prevent the usual tricks of dealing with public speaking from being effective. I can't imagine people in their underwear, because I can't imagine the people. I can't choose a single person in the crowd to speak to because I can't pick one out.
The end result is I usually black out a bit and race through whatever I'm meant to say and get off the stage as quickly as possible. In this case that may not be as easy, since I'm not just rattling off information but trying to tell a story. I know what I'm going to talk about (my writing journey and how perseverance pays off) and I can already imagine how the presentation would go. I'm writing bits in my head and I have a document going where I'm trying to get it all down. I just hope that when the time comes and I'm up in front of those people I can manage to get the story across without flubbing everything or pissing myself. Yeah, I think pissing myself might make the wrong kind of impression. Fingers crossed, people.
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I have two stories published under the Thor Bozman name, and I want to get a third out there as soon as possible. The trouble is, unlike with the other two, this one is a rewrite of an existing story and the rewrite has to happen in the middle. Now I'm no stranger to editing (even though I suck at it) but usually when I do this sort of thing I'm adding on either end or just changing a few, non-dramatic things. In this case, however, I'm inadvertently altering the course of the entire story and have to keep steering myself back. It's probably the hardest edit I've done. So instead of focusing on the edits I'm writing this journal entry and taking a ludicrous amount of time to find the pictures for it.
Good times. Now that things are under way and two books are out there (I really should figure out what to call them, since at around 10K words they're hardly novels, but novella sounds too romantic and novelette is no longer in use. Anyway...) I've had some time to reflect on the process and here's what I have so far.
1. Self-publishing on Amazon is easy as hell, but it's also easy to really mess it all up. Once you hit "Publish" on this thing it's out there, warts and all. I've never been so paranoid to hit a button before, and I'm still waiting for the message from someone saying something like, "On page 27 you wrote 'teh' instead of 'the'" which will send me into a shame spiral the likes of which has never been seen before. 2. This is not, nor will it ever be, a money-making enterprise. Right now I've priced my two novellinos (novish? novite?) at 99 cents because I wanted it to move and get out there. I knew if I was going to be telling my friends that there was a story out there to buy, I had to make it a price point that would appeal to everyone. The way Amazon works is that you get 35% of the take on items priced under $2.99, so I'm essentially getting 35 cents on the dollar. It will take a while for that to add up. 3. Once you publish, getting people to buy it is an even trickier enterprise. Sure, I told everybody on Facebook. Then I posted about it on Instagram. Then I shouted about it on the Twitter account I created for the Thor Bozman persona, and tied into it on my regular Twitter account. With all of that shouting, I'm still not raking in the cash, nor did I expect to be. While it would seem like Twitter would be a good place to advertise, there are thousands of authors on there doing the same, and most people quickly get sick of people rambling on about their books. I don't, mind you. That's how I know what to get from people I like. But the thing is, I like them because of the content they put up outside of their book advert, so there's more to it than just saying, "Buy my stuff." 4. If you're not the sort of person that excels at selling himself, then you might want to dip into a stockpile of patience in regards to sales. I keep reloading that damn page that tells me how many copies I've sold. At the moment, it's up to 20 between the two books. Naturally, I would love it to be multiples of that. That may come, but not immediately. 5. The more you publish, the more likely you are to come up in a search. After the first book, searching "Thor Bozman" got a response saying "Showing the results from Thor Bozeman" which sat over a tiny link asking if you really wanted the results from the first search. Now, with two out there, it comes up without the confusion. Granted, a few other things come up as well, but it's progress. Maybe after the third book goes up it will get even better. Maybe. I'm going to keep at it, and keep learning things, and in the meantime I'm still submitting stories under my actual name and hoping for publication there, too. It's nice to be completely in control of something, and it's also terrifying. Onward! The book is published. The first of many. With the Thor Bozman identity I plan to produce sci-fi shorts between 8,000 and 12,000 words and sell them for $.99 a piece. This little beauty is first: For the cover art I tried to go for a Phillip K. Dick feel with an unclear picture and some bright colors. I don't know if I accomplished the goal, but I did set the pattern for future books, so that's alright. Now I just have to keep myself from reloading the report over on the Kindle Direct Publishing page. So the first day I sold one, the second I sold ten, and then on the third I sold another one. I'm guessing the second day is going to be my big sales day and the rest of time will look like the other days, but who knows how it will go. Thus far I have accumulated a whopping $4.20 in royalties that I'll collect in two months. If I top $10 I will be amazed and delighted, but honestly the fact that I've made what I have so far is fun for me.
Now "Johnny and the Feathered Cats" is next in line and it is currently being edited, so fingers crossed that process doesn't take too long and I can get a second book out there. Here's the idea. I want to give self-publishing a go, but I also don't want to do with with my main books because I still have hopes that those will be picked up somewhere and published. So, I thought why not take the couple of sci-fi stories I've written and publish them under a pseudonym. They're of the longer variety and easy to box into a genre, so let's try that. First step, pick a name. Now it can't just be any name. "Bob Smith" doesn't cut it. Nor does "Dan Taylor." No, it needs to be something memorable, possibly even more memorable than the story itself. It needs to be a Kilgore Trout kind of name. Absurd, but believable, but only if you're willing to accept that the person in question has bizarre social tendencies and some sort of collection of things, like thimbles or antique power tools. Enter the local Maritime Museum. On their grounds, they have a grounded boat for kids to play on and on that boat is written, in orange on grey, the name I've been looking for. Because why the hell not? So Thor Bozman was born, and I created a Twitter account for him and started amassing followers (always an uncomfortable thing to me) and I was all set to seriously look into publishing under that name and then a nagging thought finally made enough noise in my head that I had to listen. "What if they take issue with me using the name?" I'm not sure why they would, but who knows? My stories aren't gruesome or risque. Sure, there are adult themes and some violence, but nothing too bad. Still, it's their boat and their sign and so since I have a friend that works there I asked, and then she asked above her, and now I'm waiting to hear. If they say they're not cool with it, my version of Thor Bozman will die shortly after he was born and some other bizarro name will rise to fill the void. I hope they allow it, though, since I like the local flavor of the thing and it will be a funny thing to go see the boat after something is published and think, "Hey, that's me!" We shall see. For now, I wait. I haven't felt this anxious and impatient since I sent Boff my story and never heard back. UPDATE: I heard back today that I have been given the greenlight to use the name. I'm beyond happy and am now putting things together to upload my first short novel, called "How Xander Saved the World." Thor Bozman lives! Now if your first response to that headline was to say, "Which Star Wars? They're all Star Wars. Do you mean Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope?" then first of all I'd like to invite your pedantic ass to go jump off a wall and secondly I'd like you to accept the fact that I'm a child of the 70s and for me, "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" will always be "Star Wars" and the reset go by their secondary name. Got it? Now that we've resolved that imaginary fight, I'll continue. The kid has been asking about the original films ever since I went to see the last one in the theater ("Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker" if you need it spelled out) but she wasn't sure if she wanted to see it because she abhors violence. I assured her that the violence in the original trilogy was the sort that could be dismissed - laser blasts, people disappearing as the lightsaber goes through them, explosions in space - and that there wouldn't be any blood and guts for her to contend with. I did neglect to remember the creature getting his arm cut off and then the camera panning down to the bloody limb lying on the floor. I also forgot about the charred corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle. Minor details. She was fine. I thought she might have an issue with an entire planet being blown up but she was strangely fine with it. She recognized the tragedy as such but didn't dwell. Phew! So now she gets references that have been zooming over her head for so long, and she's hungry for more. It was all I had not to just launch us right into Empire but I held back as I want her to savor these films and really digest them. And now there are soooooo many questions and I'm loving it, because my geek cred is really pulling its weight, but for her it's just her dad knowing a lot about something she's interested in, and that'a pretty awesome in my book. Now I just have to figure out how to explain the train wreck that is the prequels. Points to you if you have Pink Floyd in your head now. You're welcome. In this day and age of being able to gauge the relative success of something you've said, it's almost refreshing to have no measure whatsoever on this site. On most social media platforms there is that little heart that sends forth the implication that someone, somewhere felt a certain amount of adoration for your contribution to the world. People collect them like baseball cards, basking in the glow of topping 100, or 1000, or even more. On Twitter it's also the retweets, where someone is so impressed by your cleverness that they effectively want to say "hey everybody, look at the great thing this person said." It's usually not actual love, however, just a grunt of satisfaction as they scroll past. Well, except for that picture of me in the bow tie. That brought all the love. My brother's kind of rocking the intense baseball vibe there too, if I'm honest. But here, in this little corner of the ethersphere that I've claimed, I have no way of knowing if I'm talking to myself or thousands. The likeliest scenario is that no one reads this regularly and things will only be seen initially when someone first comes to the site. And that's perfectly fine, because it means I can say what I want without fear of ridicule or repercussion. I wish I could be one of those people who lived their life like that regardless, with no concern for how they looked or what people thought. But I'm not. I'm this guy who writes stories and is currently telling himself it's okay to say what he wants. So, unbridled and unrestricted, here I go: Mushrooms taste like what they're grown in. God that feels good to get off my chest. Hopefully I didn't just destroy my career before it even got started. I saw Star Wars: A New Hope at the drive-in theater when I was four. I remember sitting on a tailgate of a pickup truck and staring at the screen. I can't tell you if it was the vehicle I came in or just a random place to sit. Things were simpler then. I saw The Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi in the theater when they came out, as every good, little nerd boy did. It was actually a requirement stated on the back of my nerd boy membership card. Some time after the word "geek" was stolen from the circus and used to describe fans, but I've always stuck with "nerd." When The Phantom Menace came out I was so excited I played sick at work and left early to "go home and sleep this off" but instead went to the theater and saw it on the big screen. It was a thrill, but all for all of the subsequent movies I waited until they came out on disc. It wasn't that I didn't like them, it was just that my days of having to see things in the theater, paying high ticket costs and ludicrous food costs, were effectively cut short by my limited budget. But then here comes The Rise of Skywalker, effectively the end of the series, although you and I both know that Disney isn't letting this cash cow die. I knew it was just a matter of time before someone ruined every aspect of the movie by picking it apart and stupidly arguing how they could have written it better (even though no one asked them to) so I decided I had to see it in the theater. By myself. (Well, I did ask a friend to come along, but that didn't work out, and I wasn't going to wait so I went.) I don't need to explain at this point that I'm uncomfortable around people in the general sense. Give me a shield (like work) and I can manage, but left to my own devices I tend to avoid groups, or people entirely save for those two poor, unfortunate souls who live with me and are obligated by marriage and birth to put up with me. I could do this in a narrative, but that would be painstakingly reliving the whole thing, so it's time to resort to bullet points.
All things considered I had a good time. I got to see the final film on the big screen, and that made all the irksome things worth it. And now I have a gauge to use to judge the next time this situation comes up. It had better be a damn good movie to make me want to go out again. I work in three buildings, with three different sets of staff, and three distinct sets of residents, all of which I will be abandoning for a full eight days so I can celebrate the holidays with my family. (This year Hanukkah and Christmas overlap, so there will be logistical issues at the best of times. Best to be focused.)
Today I finished up with one of my locations for the year, and tomorrow it's another and then Monday, the last. Sure I'm only off for eight days, but I've been pretty much full-on in these places for the past six months so it feels weird to step back and take a breath. It's a different feeling, though, than it used to be with the old company, where being away for too long carried with it the threat that someone may decide you weren't needed after all. Now I feel confident that I'm needed, and while I don't foresee riots if I was dropped, I can imagine a couple of sternly-worded letters going to the appropriate desks. But there's no need to talk like that. I'm kicking ass at this job. Soon I will step away and take a few breaths, then return to help all of the elderly residents come to terms with the new tech they will be given over the holidays. Way back when I told people what my job was going to change into and almost everyone commented that they would be driven mad by having to help the elderly with computers, and at the time I mostly agreed. Now I'm of a different mind. I enjoy it. The genuine gratitude that people show when you help them understand something that seems so foreign to them is beautiful. Some of the younger people I work with could take some notes there. I just have two more work days and then it's Jingle Bells and Dreidel. I wonder if I'll get any writing done? Some twenty years ago or so I was having a conversation with Paul in which something resembling the following exchange took place: Me: I've been playing that Chumbawamba album pretty much non-stop. Paul: Which one? Me: What do you mean, "Which one?" The one that song is on. Paul: Tubthumping? Me: That's the one. Love that album. Paul: You do realize they have more albums, right? Me: What's that now? Cut to two decades later where the Chumbawamba discography has pretty much been the soundtrack for my life, and you'll understand why this story is so amazing to me (and also why I owe Paul a debt I can never repay, for this and for bullying me into writing down the stories in my head and ultimately leading us all here). Track 12 on their tenth studio album ends with a girl singing a rhyme detailing the jobs children had during the Victorian era. It always stuck with me, both for it's catchiness and the haunting nature of the child singing the lines: One up the chimney goes Two hawks a tray of matches Three braves the weaving floor All pray for the life of Four Five down the pit descends Six plows in fields and meadows Seven spins the handloom round Eight lies in th' burial ground That first line bounced around in my head for a long time, and there was a part of me that knew one day I would have to write a story with that as the title, but it wasn't obvious to me what the story was about yet. I didn't want to be literal and write a story about a Victorian child. I'm no Dickens, nor do I want to be. I needed the story to be its own thing. Then came NaNoWriMo (don't worry, I'm getting to Boff). I had done it for five years, then taken two years off. My friends over at Firewords were encouraging people to give it a go this year and we could all cheer each other on, and I hemmed and hawed about it until finally deciding I would write a collection of short stories, and the title of the collection would be, you guessed it, "One Up the Chimney Goes." But the story idea still wasn't with me. I wrote about twelve other stories before it snuck up on me one night when I wasn't paying attention. So I wrote it. And I didn't just use the first line, but the whole poem. It's a dark, gruesome tale and I love it. All together I wrote eighteen new stories, but I failed to connect them in any real theme. Some are dark, several are suitable for my daughter. It's a mixed bag. So what do you do with eighteen new not-connected stories? You prepare them to shop individually. But I had a problem. I had essentially "borrowed" an entire verse from this song, and though I know historically the band had done things like encouraging people to steal their album, I didn't know how it would sit with them if I published a story with their lyric blatantly used. So I decided to ask. Now I knew two members of the band had been involved from the beginning to the unfortunate end in 2012: Boff Whalley and Lou Watts. I found Boff's website and was happy to see a "Contact" section and with a mighty "What the hell can it hurt?" I filled in the blanks. I don't remember what I said, exactly. I'm hoping I came across as somewhat normal. Regardless of how strange I may have seemed, Boff Whalley wrote me back. Not only did he do that, but he also asked to see the finished story. I cannot express how incredibly chuffed I am. It's in editing. By that I mean my wife read it and did line edits and Paul is giving it a once-over as well. As soon as it's polished I will send it to Boff. Who knows what his reaction will be. I certainly hope he enjoys it and delights in the fact that his words inspired someone else's. We shall see how this unfolds. As always, there are infinite possibilities ahead, but what really sticks with me right now, what makes all of those possibilities, from the horrible to the happy, alright is one simple fact. Boff Whalley wrote me back. Edit: I've just realized that my signature file in my email has this web address, and I've written Boff back, thereby giving him that information, thereby creating a minute possibility that he may be reading this post. If so, Hi Boff! I swear I'm not a nutcase. Honest.
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