One Over X News

Some News Regarding One Over X and Many Other Things

Book 3, titled An Extreme Departure will be available in advance reader's copies for reviews sometime in the spring. The book has been finished for some time. There were other projects at the publisher that were advanced for one purpose or another. The delay allowed for the production of a much more interesting cover. For a preview of what the book cover looks like, check out www.acbooks.com

I will probably post an excerpt from each of the first three books sometime in the very near future, so check back regularly. I have the Blog settings checked to email a notification whenever a comment is posted. I will read and respond to comments if it is called for. I want this Blog to be pretty wide open and unstructured.

My email address is also under my personal profile information. If you are here I would like to hear from you.

The books are available online through www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com but the later never has any inventory. I don't want that to be miscontrued. Locally the Barnes and Noble at least sat down with me and explained how they schedule book signings. They also expressed an interest in supporting local writers. The local media were also very cordial but they wanted to see some promotional efforts before they would schedule any interviews. 'Promotional Efforts' is a euphemism for 'show me the money'. I think that if I was advertising in Florida Today or the Orlando Sentinel I might actually get a call back for an interview. As it is I doubt my messages or notes even made it to the real decision maker's desk. At Florida today the recpetionist spent a good ten minutes telling me how busy the book critic is and how she does not accept unsolicitied self published material.

I am not self published! Arrrrgggggghhhhh!

I have to promote my books. That is what an author has to do. I am not a celebrity. Having met a couple of celebrities in passing I am not sure I want to be a member of that club or any club that would have someone like me as a member, to paraphrase Groucho Marx. Being a celebrity looks like it is not always fun. The wealth part that usually goes along with it would be good but I am so used to not having money that I would likely turn out as one of those mega bucks lottery winners that is bankrupt and in jail within two years.

A few people have asked me when the books will appear on shelves in book stores. Well that requires sales and promotional efforts such as $60,000 full page ads in the Sunday Boston Herald - I certainly could not afford a full page in the Sunday New York Times. It is a cruel world this publishing business, where you have to belong to the 'good-ole boy' network to get distribution and you have to have money to back the promotional efforts and regardless all that at some point you have to just flat-out sell some serious quantity of books. Then the brick and mortars will stock your books.

(Insert future rant here about celebrities selling their ghost-written autobiographies and famous people getting the default leg-up on publishing.)

I have a day job that utilizes 60 to 70 hours of my work week. Retail management sucks sometimes. I write, revise and edit for 4 to 6 hours a day seven days a week. That is not an excuse just a fact. I like working in retail or I wouldn't do it. I meet really interesting people all the time. I rarely meet anyone famous. Martha Stewart yelled at me once. I didn't know who she was until someone told me and even then I asked, "What does she do?". When I was a vendor representative for Symantec (Norton's Anti-Virus, etc.) I was working in a store on the north side of Orlando and met Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson from All In The Family and The Jeffersons). He lives near Sanford, a town north of Altomonte Springs on I-4 just outside of the greater Orlando area. I had a digital picture taken with him at the store but they never gave me a copy :-(

I have been around famous, semi-famous and hardly famous people from time to time in my past. Overall it is just as my father used to tell me. We all get into our pants the same way. People tend to be people. The famous people that do not have time for the rest of us have lost touch with reality. The masses are the reality. They confer the privilege of fame upon certain individuals that are for a moment or a period in time deemed worthy of adulation, immitation or whatever.

I used to work road crew for a couple of obscure rock bands. I was in a jazz/rock band as a bassist for a while. We were destined for mediocrity and we trully really reached our fullest potential about two weeks after we began playing together. We did a benefit at the Children's Home in Springfield, Ohio. We sounded pretty good for once. I remmeber being asked to sign an autograph afterwards. That was the first time I think that anyone ever thought I was famous.

I ran lights for a promoter that rented out the Mars Theater in Lafayette, Indiana. It was an old full-stage theater that had been converted to present movies before the surrounding urban blight closed it down. My friend, Mike Wienstein brought in rock bands to the venue. It was fairly close to the Purdue campus across the river.

The bands were second tier acts at the time but the novelty of having rock concerts in little old Lafayette was very cool for the local crowd and the students. I worked lights for Head East and did stage security for Cheap Trick. I helped with the cabling for The Pousette-Dart Band, which may be a band that you have never heard of but that is your loss. The band was very, very good. Jon Pousette-Dart is an amazing lyricist.

Lyrics are poems intended to be set to music. When I was in a band I wrote a rock-opera based on the epic poem Beowulf. No seriously, I am not kidding. My band actually recorded if for a project in my senior year English class in high school. I got an 'A' on the project probably because it was a pretty radical project idea. The recording sucked, the music lagged the lyrics were banal but damn it I wrote a rock opera and performed it for my class!

Poems: I have done a few in my day. Girls like it when guys write poetry for them. Poems do not usually win a girl's heart but they like the nice words, especially coming out of a guy. It is so uncharacteristic. I wrote my first poem when I was seven. I still remember most of it.
That poem inspired the title of Book 6, Sages and Lesser Fools.

I was just trying to think if I have met anyone famous in the last couple of years. I know a couple of local radio DJ's in Melbourne that buy stuff in my store. I sort of know a couple of guys, through emails that do a hilarious morning show in Orlando. I used to exchange emails with Larry the Cable Guy, a home grown comedian that has some national following now. He is one seriously twisted but funny individual. He cracks me up consistently. His humor is based on how people are. Larry sees the irony in everything and bends it back to where it hurts it is so funny. That is a gift. I take no offense that he is usually describe my relatives.

One thing I would like to have some feedback on is whether I should continue to post examples of other writing I have done over the years or post examples of the sci-fi/fantasy genre material that I am probably best known for at this moment. I have no issue with being classified as a sci-fi writer but I am being very honest when I tell you that based on the volume of what I write I am not really a sci-fi writer. I am probably not even a fantasy writer. I am a fiction writer, yes. That label fits.

I admit to loving science fiction. I grew up with it but I was so enthralled with the TV that I never read in the 1960's. I was seriously a fan of Lost In Space, Star Trek and Time Tunnel.

I watched TV a lot during the decade. I watched The Munsters, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Guilligan's Island, It's About Time (how is that for an obscure one-season show) , F-Troop, Batman, The Monkees, The 1968 Democratic Convention (almost gavel to gavel), Julia (portrayed by Diahn Carrol one of the finest and perhaps least appreciated color barrier-breaking actresses), I Spy, The Cosby Show.

Returning to the writing culture, I still feel that it is perhaps the most wide open vehicle for creative writing. I respect a number of authors in the genre and consider them among my favorities: Harlan Ellison, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Samuel R. Delany and Ursula K. LeGuin.

Lately my writing has tended toward the fantasy genre and neo realism. I think I writer needs to explore and where ever his or her comfort is found there is a basis for future writing. If I decide to write something that is out of the stereotypical sci-fi genre, then so be it. As I say, I am not really a sci-fi writer. I have written a couple of books that are in print that have some of the attributes of sci-fi. There is also a good deal of fantasy in those books which may or may not be a subset of sci-fi. Even in Book 1, there is a lot of neo realism. My books are very hard to categorize. My publisher had informed me on several occasions that I need to write something more traditional that maybe will establish a wider reader base. My daughters tell me to write down the stories that I tell them.

My publisher is right. My daughter are right. I know that. I worked in marketing and advertising long enough to know that is going on. All that is in conflict with the artistic parts of my being, though. You see except for Jina expecting to gain some sort of windfall from the massive sales of my books (that she never supported at all when I was staying up late to write them) or the proceeds from potential movie options, there is nothing expected of the books at all. What I want to have is a base of people that read my books and let me know if they like them. I can get by on what I do in the other part of my reality, the one that involves money and paying bills. I would like the books to sell well for the sake of my publisher who is a very nice guy. He believes in the work that I have done for him thus far. I have also donated hours of editing and formatting of other books for him.

If this post has one central theme it is that we are all one people and we are all so greatly alike that any differences are minimal and may as well be rendered insignificant.

Long day; long Blog.

There have been a couple of interruptions. My best friend Ela'na called me earlier. She needs some computer tech expertise. If I resolve the matter over the phone from 2200 miles away then I am the man. If not she needs to send her computer here to get the evil influences removed from it.

E

posted by Unknown @ 9:03 PM