NaNoWriMo 2012 - 37 More Days

37 more days until NaNoWriMo.  Am I prepared?  Not really.  I'm leaning toward the humorous time travel story, probably because I've been obsessed with Doctor Who lately.  I just need to come up with some bad guys to complicate matters a bit.  I'm still pondering the world-jumping fantasy mercenary thing though.

Quick updates:

1. Add Ready Player One to the list of books that I've had dreams about.  I had a dream I was in the hunt for the keys a few nights ago.
2. I briefly had custody of a stray kitten I named Tito.  Tito wandered away one morning last week and hasn't been seen since.  I suspect one of the many neighbors I told about him took him in.
3. I had my house power washed and my driveway sealed.  It looks good now.  I'm still getting jerked around by contractors about replacing my gutters though.
4. I've been watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  It's a glorious train wreck.

Off to Neverland - Thoughts on... Doctor Who?

So, there I was last night, watching the final episodes of season six of Doctor Who, when I noticed The Child Thief on my bookcase and got to thinking.

The dynamic between Amy Pond and the Eleventh Doctor is very much like Wendy and Peter Pan.  Amy escaping her real life by adventuring with The Doctor in the TARDIS is a lot like Peter taking Wendy to Neverland.  The sexless relationship between the two is also quite remniscent of Peter and Wendy.

There's a line in one of the episodes of season six where the Doctor says "Offer a child a briefcase of sweets and they'll take it.  Offer them all of the universe and they'll take that too."  In the same episode, he says it was selfish of him to take Amy with him, saying he wanted to be adored.  Sounds like Peter Pan to me but also like the Peter character from Brom's The Child Thief.

NaNoWriMo 2012 - Less than 7 weeks

It's that magical time of year, when the November Warriors begin planning their attack.

Am I ready?  Not at all.  Do I have an idea?  I have many ideas.  I have a setting I've been toying with for a couple years but still don't have a story I'm crazy about telling in it.  I also have a time travel story I'd like to do.  I guess my project for the next six weeks will be to develop both ideas a bit and then pick one.  I've been on a sf/fantasy kick lately so that's probably what I'll attempt, although it will probably still unfold more like a crime book.

I am way too fascinated by this

Ever wonder what regions call carbonated beverages soda and which ones call it pop?  Wonder no longer!

http://www.popvssoda.com/

Call the Doctor!

Way back in February while fighting off a cold, I watched most of Doctor Who season 5 only to find out one of my disks was defective.  Turns out it was a bootleg set some secondary seller on Amazon was passing off as the real deal.  Last week, I rebought season 5 from Amazon itself instead of a secondary seller and picked up season 6 as well.

Over the weekend, I watched the season 5 episodes I missed and started plowing into season 6.  Long story short, Doctor Who is pretty cool.  I should have started watching it consistently years ago.

In other news, I took a ton of pictures over the weekend that I'll post sometime soon, mostly frogs and butterflies.

Dangerous Dan's thoughts on Self-Publishing

Sooner or later, everyone who writes ponders self-publishing.  I've been putting some thought into the subject myself lately.

While I'm sure there are some gems out there in the POD sea, the majority of the self-published books I've either read or flipped through suffer from the following problems:

1. Little to no editing:  If there are misspelled words or bad punctuation in the first few pages, I'm finished reading.
2. Odd formating: If I turn to a random page and there are as many blank lines as there are of text, I'm not very motivated to read.  Has the author ever flipped through another published book?
3. Uninspired title and/or cover:  I notice this particualarly in the Goodreads giveaways I never seem to win.  CG or obviously photoshopped covers may be cheap and easy but they don't scream professional to me.  If they spent little effort on the cover, what's the inside going to be like?  On a positive note, one cover I've seen lately that does it right is Hildred Billing's Daisuke.  It's very well-designed and makes me want to flip through it immediately.

All that being said, self-publishing does have some things going for it:

1. No padding required:  Too many books put out by the big publishing houses seem to be padded to meet a specific length to me.
2. Give me my damn money!:  The author gets the lion's share of the pie.  Seems only fitting considering he/she did the lion's share of the work.
3. Complete and Total Freedom:  Do I really have to explain this one?

There you go.  Just to show I'm not a total curmudgeon, here are some self-published/small press books I've enjoyed tremendously.

1. A Short Stay in Hell
2. Blood and Tacos
3. Crawlin' Chaos Blues

So, yeah.  I'm thinking about doing some short stories and releasing them in various e-formats.  We'll see what happens.

My new favorite dirty joke (MAY BE OFFENSIVE)

What's the difference between jam and jelly?

Highlight below:
You can't jelly your dick up some girl's ass.

This Just In - I am not a loser!

Last week, Bob at Beauty in Ruins held giveways for two books from Angry Robot: The Corpse Rat King and Seven Wonders.  I have won the copy of Seven Wonders.

Now to cancel my Amazon order for it before it ships.

Sometimes it pays to check your OTHER email account

So, whenever it was I set up my Society6 account to sell photographs, I also set up a PayPal and a new email address.  Since my Society6 account was verified, I have checked the email account exactly zero times.

Imagine my surprise this morning when, on a whim, I checked it and found that 13 of my photos were added to the Society6 store, which means greater visibility.  I feel somewhat honored.  I still haven't sold any photos beyond the two I've already mentioned so spread the word, readers!

In other news, the writing bug is trying to bite me again.