Tag: droppington place

Fred Flintstone Calling

I’ve got this great idea, see. All’s ya gotsta do is get everybody in Uruguay to visit your site just once – they don’t even need to linger. That’s over 3.4 million views! Man, you are gonna rake in the dough!

So, the deal with Fred Flintstone – if you’re too young to know – was that he was a caveman, see, the head of a modern stone-age family. His wife, Wilma, and his neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, lived in the town of Bedrock. A town just like yours and mine, except made out of rock.

It was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series made in the early 1960’s and it was dopey fun.

Fred was every man’s everyman. He was living the caveman equivalent of the American Dream – good job, house in the ‘burbs, picket fence, nice ped-powered car.

A regular Joe, except that he had a penchant for making outlandish, foolproof plans to make a million clams. He was gonna quit the quarry and live the life of a millionaire, just as soon as his ship sailed.

“Barney boy, by this time tomorrow, we are gonna be livin’ like kings!”

Of course he never quite succeeded – Dino the dinosaur dog ate the proceeds, it turned out the ptero-chickens were all ptero-roosters,  Ann Margarock had to be in Rock Vegas on the night of the big event, etc.

At the end of every episode, there was Wilma, reminding him that he already had everything he needed right there in his little family. And he always sheepishly admitted she was right. “Wilma, you are the greatest…”

If you’re reading this, and I imagine you are, you probably have an inner Fred Flintstone yourself.

You’re thinking there’s always a chance, a long shot maybe, but a chance that this one, this stupid crazy-ass scheme, this could be the one. One in a million chance, but, hey, somebody’s gonna make it… Ten bazillion books get published and read every year, why not mine?

So, I recently gave up on my inner Fred. I was a little depressed, maybe. A little tired. I dunno.

I decided that this is the dish, this life o’ mine: this is my someday. Someday I’ll have a nice house in the ‘burbs and a pretty wife and 2.5 kids and a good job with a decent salary. Hey, I have all of that, so this must be it.

All righty, then, Fred. It’s been fun. Good luck with your crazy schemes. I’m hanging up the bronto-phone now – I gotta go mow the lawn.

So, I go and tell my wife, the very love of my life, that I’m hanging up my bronto-spurs, and quote that line from All Things Great and Small where Herriot tells a fellow that someday he’ll be a millionaire, and the fellow replies with “Nah, it’s not in the cards. Was I to be a millionaire, well, I’d be one already, don’t you see?”

My darling wife replies “well, let’s not be too hasty about that.”

Whoa, whoa, hold on, there. That’s a Fred Flintstone line, not a Wilma line! YOU can’t say I’m gonna make a million clams, because YOU’RE the voice of REASON!

Like a bolt out of the blue, I was gobsmacked, thunderstruck, and over the moon in a tizzy of heaven for-fend, she, she, she believes in my crazy schemes!

To quote Goofy, “gorshk.”

So, I’m opening everything back up – Skippity Whistles, California Air Museums, even hauling The Book in for a rewrite.

Do I have a plan?

Heck no! I’m making it up as I go! Never quote me the odds!

My wonderful wife, she, she believes in me!

Wilma: “Oh, Fred.” (Sighs and exits)

Character Hijackery Part II

It’s been a while, but I previously posted a bit on how the voices in your head sometimes take over your story. Oh, wait, I just said what this entire post is about. Rats.

Continue reading “Character Hijackery Part II”

The Droppington Franchise

I’m flashing my curtains at you – did you see it?

If you’ve read my novel Droppington Place, you’d know that flashing the curtains is how Penrose, the sawdust copy of  an obscure 16th Century playwright, lures Byron into the world of Droppington Place.  It’s a paper world, hidden from time, from which Byron and his middle school friends Hailey Shen and Kyle Rodriquez must escape before they, too, become paper.

If I may be blunt: it’s a pretty good book.

Continue reading “The Droppington Franchise”

Death of Some Salesmen

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You published the book, and it just sits there, doing nothing except get annoying because…well, because nobody’s reading it.

Continue reading “Death of Some Salesmen”

Five Years to Independence: Year Five – the Year of Independence

So, here we are at Year Five, the Year of Independence. This is the goal, the island to which we’ve charted our five year course, the one thing we’ve focused on and worked on and planned on.

So, like, what is year five?

Continue reading “Five Years to Independence: Year Five – the Year of Independence”

Smelling Like a Duck

If it looks like a duck, and floats like a duck, but doesn’t smell like a duck, is it a duck? Or is it a decoy? A fake duck? Perhaps a wannabe duck.

You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You pour your heart and soul into your work, you polish every single word, and then you launch it out into the world. But… how?

Once I was in a restaurant and the waitress asked me what I wanted. I told  her I’d been thinking about the turkey sandwich, to which she replied “and what did you decide?”

I used to think that the difference between writers and folks who thought they’d like to take a stab at writing is that writers write. I still believe that to be true, but perhaps not as thoroughly true as I once thought.

Suppose you wrote your brains out, but shoved all your work into the furnace and sent it up in flames? If no one reads it, did it have meaning?

Obviously it did to you, but only to you. You’re a writer – you have a story to tell. If you don’t tell it, or if you tell it only to yourself, well, are you a writer?

It’s  a long way to get to the point that we must publish. My books are at Smashwords – yes, that was a shameless plug, but it illustrates a point.

Once upon a time we would hawk our words to agents who would hawk our words to publishers who would bring our words to the world at large. In Shakespeare’s time, Will had to hawk his words to his publisher – there was no agent – and together they hawked his words to the world.

I’m thinking that Mr. Shakespeare’s paradigm has returned, now that the writer’s world has turned into a Wild West of Self Publishing.

I found this great website, run by Joanna Penn, called the Creative Penn.  Her site is full of good ideas and great tools and is generally a lot of fun to wander about. While I don’t know Ms. Penn, and only recently discovered her site, I believe there is a lesson there for us all.

You, my writer friend, and I, unless we are to be mistaken for decoys, or wannabe ducks, must actively, and intensely, pursue the task of hawking our words to the world. It’s up to you and me.

Unless we do that, I believe that we are deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are somehow successful authors for having published ourselves. While that is truth, it an incomplete and rather shallow truth.

You, my friend, and I, must embrace the fact that if we do not actively market our work, we do not, in fact, smell like a duck.

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#writersofinstagram #bookworm #bookstagram #writing #booklover

Crows are Smarter than People, but don’t Sizzle

I have proof! It’s true! They are way smarter than I am!

See, I’d seen an ad during the Super Bowl, like, four times, for the McDonald’s Cheesy Bacon Fries, and each time I thought to myself “dang, that’s cool!”

Now, my darling, wonderful wife is out of town, and I find myself with a day off (please don’t tell my wife I did this – she’ll have the I-told-you-so of a lifetime, and I’ve already given her so, so many. It’s safe to post this, because she never reads my stuff. If you don’t tell her, we’re cool).

So, It’s a lovely day at the harbor here in Ventura, and there’s a McDonald’s just a few blocks away. I don’t feel all that hot from an abusive weekend in Las Vegas (being volleyball parents isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be),  and, hey, I mean, it’s McDonald’s, right?

The first challenge is that the Cheesy Bacon Fries come in a box with a knife and spork.  Uh oh, the gullet says. This could be danger. Then I crack open the box.

So, when we were in Montreal, we discovered a Canadian dish called poutine – fries, cheese curds, brown gravy, and meat, all piled onto a plate. It is heaven on a cold day.

Ronald’s version doesn’t have the brown gravy, but it’s the same thing.

The first taste is really great – man, warm salt and fat. Kind of bacony, a little bit potatoey, and a strong dose of cheesy.  Even as I chew it, I’m thinking this is not a very good idea.  Kinda of like eating the cake that’s been out on the counter for a couple of days. It might be okay. Might.

So, about the crow. He flies up and takes station on the lamppost, right above my car. He looks at me with that look that crows have – inscrutable, but intriguing.  He wants a fry. He’s scared away all the pigeons, and the seagulls haven’t spotted the McD bag yet.

I make sure he sees me waggle a bacon-encrusted cheesy fry out the window, and give it a toss onto the grass. He dives on it the second it’s down.

Now, seagulls are smart. Once, my daughter and I played fetch with one.  We  had found a golf ball on the beach, and tossed it into the sand down next to the waves. A gull swept down, scooped it up, and dropped in right in front of us. I threw the ball again, and the bird brought it right back. We played like this for maybe 15 throws, until  he dropped the ball way out in the water and flew away.  Huh. Game over.

But seagulls will eat just about anything. You can make them explode with Alka Seltzer tablets – but please, please don’t. I can’t think of a more awful way to die.

This crow however, perhaps ponders a more awful demise in eating the cheesy bacon fry. He holds it in his beak and stares at me with disdain, his black eye asking “how could you?”  He hops onto the back of a bench, the fry firmly held in his beak, and looks thoughtfully out to sea.

The arrival of a flock of seagulls startles him, and he bolts out over the harbor in a stunning show of aerial mastery. He swings over me, the cheesy bacon fry wagging in his mouth, and then out over the water.

With every sign of intention and purpose, he drops the cheesy bacon fry into the bubbling waves, and off he goes.

What does this story have to do with writing books? Everything, my friend, everything and more.

If you , like me, publish your own work (my books are at Smashwords) there’s a huuuuuuuuge lesson here:

I bought the McDonald’s Cheesy Bacon Fries, knowing full well that it was just a box of salt, fat, and a strange orange semi-liquid cheese.  No, I couldn’t eat them, because, well, ick. But I gave McD’s my money for the experience. It was all sizzle, and surely no steak.

It’s the sizzle. It has to be the sizzle – sizzle so alluring that it makes you buy a product you really know you shouldn’t have, just because, well, because there’s so much sizzle!

On the health side, I’ll fly with the crows.

But on the marketing side, I’ll take a page from McDonald’s!

Please don’t tell my wife.

Hashtags of sizzle:

#McDonald’s #authorsoninstagram #droppington place #marigolds end

Five Years to Independence: Year Two – The Year of Confidence

If you’re just tuning in, this series of posts is about a self-improvement (ick, I hate that term) a self-developmental program that I’ve put myself through twice (yes, twice) which I call Five Years to Independence. If you follow the steps, yes it takes a long time, and no, no harm will come to you, and, in the end, you’ll feel better about your talents, and will find yourself accomplished in your field.

This plan works for you if you are not currently using your chosen talent to support yourself. If, for example, you are a fine painter, but you spend your days checking tax returns for a living, this plan is for you. I myself spent half of my life trapped in a succession of customer service positions before I figured this out.

Year One was all about not looking back, about honoring the road you’ve chosen so far in life. Although it hasn’t led you to success in using your talents, it has led you here.

And here is where we begin Year Two – The Year of Confidence.

Although this year is about self-confidence, it’s not the point. The point is that this year you express, believe, and totally embrace confidence in your talent. Whatever it is.

If you dance, this year you are a dancer. If you write, this year you are a writer. If you act… and so on and so forth.

This is the year in which you give yourself permission to be who you really are. You stop making excuses as to why you’re not that person: you be that person.

It takes a lot of courage to stop thinking of your talent as “well, you know, I dabble in watercolor,” and to instead refer to yourself as a painter. But that’s what this year is all about: courage.

One of the key parts of last year, the Year of No Regrets, was that, while you stopped kicking yourself for never having trusted your talent, you also worked in your art. You wrote, danced, sang, built a resume, even if only you saw it, which says Yes, I Am That Artist.

So, in fact, you are that artist. You write/dance/sing/act/paint. Whether anyone has seen it or not is immaterial. There is now artwork in the world, which you created. Artwork, by its very definition, is created by an artist. And that’s you.

Now, if you skipped the working part of the first year, it’s okay. Start working now. Now. Don’t put it off, or you’re wasting your time.

So, yes, that is who you are, but it does take some courage to admit it. You don’t have to go get new business cards. You need to tell your heart of hearts every single moment of every single day that you are a practicing artist. If you doubt yourself, look at the work you’ve accomplished.

If you are a performance artist, your road is both more difficult and more rewarding. A painter’s painting is a forever thing, but that moment when you catch the audience’s heart – that is fleeting. If you’ve ever done it, you feel it in your soul. For you to practice your art, you need to put yourself in front of an audience so you can pursue and perfect those moments. It’s harder, because you need to be cast in role – I recommend acting classes, either in workshops or for college credit, or both. Community Theater is always a very useful option. But it is so rewarding, because those little moments are such emotional highs. I know, spoken like a true actor. Funnily enough, I chose writing instead.

So, do you now what to do here in Year Two? Be it. Live it. Stop dreaming of it and become it.

So, here is my caveat about the Five Years to Independence: you have to define success. You don’t quite see my name on billboards, or find my novels at Barnes and Noble (yet).

Here’s how the plan has worked for me: I spent literally twenty-eight years in the customer service industry. Starting as a simple rep, I worked my way up through the ranks until I was a corporate director. When that company was sold, I moved on to become a partner in a service business, where my primary function was customer service. All the while, I dabbled in acting, in voice-over, in writing. The Great Recession crashed my business, and I found myself working part time at Bank of America helping people negotiate their failed mortgages.

It was then that I started this program, having built it as I went, and figured out who I really was, and what I wanted to be. I wrote my brains out in the Year of No Regrets, and sold my work for pennies to a number of online publishing sites. In that year, I became a writer.

In the next year, I decided to focus on a practical use for my writing, and learned how to be a technical writer. In the summer of that year, I got myself hired as a full time technical writer.

That, to me, is a huge success. I make my living, pay my bills, support my family, through my art as a writer. I no longer say that I dabble in writing – I do it every single day. It’s not prose or poetry, but it’s my art. And I love it.

To be sure, there’s much more to come – I have two novels, Droppington Place and Marigold’s End, that I’m marketing right now (for you marketers out there, did you notice how I slyly built two links right into this post? I know, I know, brilliance at it’s best).

The caveat, then, is that you must define your success. Getting to where you want to be requires mapping a road. Now that you are confident as an artist, you need to start thinking about where you can ply your trade.

That comes next, in the Year of Accomplishment!

 

 

 

 

Keeping Chin-ups

Remember when you were a kid, and you had to do chin-ups at school? OMG, that was the worst thing ever! I always cheated and took a little jump up, so I always got a count of at least one.  That second one was murder. And the third? Forget it. Same with push-ups. To this day, when I think of push-ups, I see the unmoving gym floor swim before my eyes…

And so it is with marketing your own novel, as I am marketing mine. Which novel(s) do we speak of? Why, Droppington Place and Marigold’s End, of course.  You’re a writer. You know how it goes.

Marketing is all about getting people to pay attention to you. You could make YouTube videos – tried that. You could make your own website – mine is right here: PhineasCaswell.com.  You could make podcasts or something.

Whatever you do, you have to somehow drive traffic to it. That’s the key, the thing, the line over which you must cross to become the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

So, I’ve been posting oodles of posts about the famous pirate Blackbeard on my site (see the shameless marketing plug above). In particular, I’ve focused on his most notorious ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Beyond that cool name, there’s just not much information available about her, which I take as a personal challenge. Why?

Okay, sit down – you’re not gonna believe this. My next novel deeply involves Blackbeard. Whoa! Huh? Did not see that coming, right? Blackbeard was born in 1680. My character Phineas Caswell, hero of Marigold’s End, a Phineas Caswell Adventure, was born in 1694. Both were sailing around the Caribbean at the same time, 1706… See? Those gears are a’turnin’,right?  Blackbeard was 26 – in command of privateers or something, right? And Phineas… well, I leave it to your imagination to link those guys together. Or, actually, to MY imagination…

Anyway, I just ran a Google search on the phrase Queen Anne’s Revenge. My website didn’t show up on the first page, or the third, or the seventh. I gave up on Page 15, certain that I’m just not out there in the world. In fact, my site would appear, if I could find it, after “great snacks for the kiddos” and “cool dog names.”

Sigh.

Just like in middle school, in gym class, it’s all a question of keeping one’s chin up. Someday. Someday I’ll cross some magical line and come up on the first page of a Google search. And then the angels will sing, and the heavens will open up, and somebody will click through, visit my site, and buy my books.

Or, I could win the Powerball. The odds seem to be about the same.

 

 

NOW We’re Getting Somewhere!

You’re a writer, you know how it is. You write your book. You push it to agents. Nobody wants to represent it because, well, maybe it’s not that good of a book. Maybe it IS good, but not marketable. That’s what Disney told me.

I had an agent tell me “you should publish this yourself.”

Did so. Well, published this book instead: Droppington Place. But then I sat down and rewrote the book in question, which I have yet to push out to the agently world. That book is this book: Marigold’s End.

Boom – did you see how I did that, there? You notice that here, in the top quarter of my post, I’ve already pitched two products. Boom. Huh? You, my friend, have already been marketed to. Zimzam, what was that? What did it take?

That’s Gorilla Marketing at its best.

Okay, so, contrary to the Gorilla Marketing tenet of “do no work,” I did a little bit of work, and now have something to show you: PhineasCaswell.com.

“Wha… what’s happening?” you exclaim, your mind a whirl of sudden marketing impact. Boom, two books, zimzam, a website, just like that. Whoa. Sit down, my friend, lest you explode or something.

All right, all seriousness aside, if you have a minute, click on the PhineasCaswell.com link – there it is again. Open it in a new window so that you don’t miss any of my glorious words here.

Why is this a big deal? Because, if you publish your own book, you are responsible for marketing it. You need a website to give yourself some bottom – make yourself available for your readers. And, unless you yourself are a web designer, this can be a challenge.

I gave up trying to be a web designer as well as a marketer, an author, a technical writer/illustrator, a videographer, all in addition to being a loving husband and father.

First was Open Element, which gives you free, open-source web design software, with templates that seem to be “responsive” – you know, works well on cell phones as well as desktops. But the software is so so so so so very hard to navigate, and the stuff it seems like you really need? Well, that’s in French, you see…

Next came, Serif, a British company that makes a terrific web design suite. It’s quite inexpensive, but not yet quite up to the challenge of responsive web design.

Then came Google Web Design, which worked for a minute, but I couldn’t figure out the language to navigate their templates… OMG, my website looked ghastly! Like a commercial for Google!

However, GoDaddy, who carries my hosting, has a nifty WordPress plug-in. As above, boom, zimzam, etc, now PhineasCaswell.com is a nice, responsive website, looking equally cool on desktops, tablets and phones (marketers take note: that was yet another link).

Brag about the site though I should, I’m passing on to you, my valued reader, that WordPress seems to be really good at making a responsive website. That means that you don’t have to be.

One little nasty surprise does seem to come with a WordPress plug-in: the SSL certificate. If you haven’t got one of these, your WordPress site actually scares viewers away with a big warning that your site is not safe. I paid $75 to get my certificate. If you don’t pay the $75, you appear to the world as a creepy underworld scum, out to steal passwords. Seems as if there’s a piratical side to fighting pirates that just might be worse…

But you, my marketing self-publishing writer friend, that’s the big news for you, should you be looking for an easy way to build a backend for your authorial effort.

To those who were paying attention, I dropped Phineas Caswell as my nom de plume, and have published both novels under my own name. Not such a big deal for you, but a whopper for me!

The Golden Carrot of Immortality

You run marathons for the joy of running, right? Surely it can’t be for the prize money. But you don’t devote your life to it, either. What do I do? Oh, I’m a marathon runner – oh, and I also work as a nuclear scientist, you know, during the week.

But, you’re a writer. You know how it goes. Writing is like breathing – like running. When it flows it’s golden, and when it doesn’t, you worry about getting it flowing. Writing is… everything.

But, everything else is everything, too. Somehow, some way, we all find a way to weasel in a little time to write – as I’m writing this, my daughter’s getting a cavity filled.

But, where running is glorious simply for the sake of running, writing doesn’t achieve its true glory until it’s been read. Until you transform someone’s thinking with your ideas, writing is just a mental exercise.

You know the difference between writers and wannabe writers, right? One does, while the other wishes he did. Writing tons of stuff and packing it away, never to be read, doesn’t do it, either. If no one reads your stuff, you’re not writing, just expressing.

So, what can the prize be? I am truly blessed to work as a professional videographer, writing and telling industrial stories. I am married to a terrific woman, have three successful, wonderful children, and live in a great house in a beach town. Hello?

For all that, my writer’s eye is still attracted to that shining bauble of intellectual immortality, that celestial club that includes Shakespeare and Hemingway, Milton, and, yes, Rowling. That club that persists far beyond the wash of generations.

Isn’t that why you write? Aren’t your ideas larger than your life? Don’t your characters extend beyond you?

If you impress somebody – change their mind, make them laugh, bring them an image they’d never seen – is that it? Are you done?

Or are you like a machine, an authorial savant, cranking and cranking out scenes and images, ad infinitum?

Is there a prize – a golden carrot of immortality? Does it show up one day in the mail? And, if you got it, could you stop writing?

These are the things that keep me up at night… well, that and seeking the flow… and making sure the mortgage is paid and the plumbing doesn’t leak and getting the dog’s teeth fixed and paying the taxes and that odd ticking when I turn the car and my son’s upcoming wedding and finding a good school for my daughter…

You’re a writer. You know how it goes.

You You, You

Dateline, downton Phoenix, AZ:
Just saw a lady walking down the street in the 110° heat talking out loud to herself. No one seemed too concernered, although she was engaged in a pretty hefty argument.

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You work out your character’s dialog, say things the way they would say them. Sometimes you find a catchy little phrase – speak quickly, my time is not my own – that you want to hold on to, because it’s exactly what your guy Hector would say.

Sound of skidmarks. I start sweating, and it isn’t the heat.

Me, spinning through the conversations I plan to write. Crazy lady having phantom conversations.

Does she know she looks crazy? Does she know the other person isn’t there? Would she believe you if you told her? If you showed her a picture, would she not see the other person in it?

Are the conversations I quietly work out in my head during my walks not quiet at all? Do I simply not see people staring at me as I pass? If you showed me a video of my solo, out loud, rambling conversations, would I even believe it?

It’s totally creeping me out, because there’s no way to tell if you couldn’t tell. Maybe we’re all sitting in cardboard boxes…

You know, writing is a lonely business. When you purposefully enter a world of your own creation, you walk a thin line between realities. Before you step in, make sure you believe what you believe. Maybe that’s what makes it such a cool art form.

Did I say that out loud?

Character Hijackery

Imagine setting up something really, really complex, like an Ocean’s 11 style casino robbery, or maybe a game of Sorry – okay, maybe not that one – but something really complex, that you’ve puzzled over for months until now, now, this very minute, you’re ready to go. To pull the trigger, dial the phone, hit Execute, or RUN, or whatever it is that sets your plan in motion. Good for you.

You’re a writer, you know how it is. You slave away over your work, because you love it, and it’s good for you, and because you have something that needs to be said.

I’m working on Novel Number 3, tentatively called The Terrible – it’s a joke that plays out in the… rats, I’ve given it away. Well, forget that part.

So, it may seem like I’m rambling, but I’m giving you crumbs. Clues, if you will. Because you’re smart, and you’ll piece it all together.

Did you get anything yet?

Sigh. Okay, here it is. I’ll use little words: I’ve started a third novel. My first, MARIGOLD’S END, is under revision, my second, DROPPINGTON PLACE, is self-published, and I can’t sit here on my hands and just die, can I? I mean, can you?

This third novel is carefully laid out, with four strong central characters. Well, it was four, but, just yesterday, I needed a transition piece, a moment that both gives us time and place and setting, but that also starts the storytelling ball rolling.

So I created this simple fellow – not much more than a name, really – to carry the news of the French ambassador’s arrival. Not so bad, huh? Except that he needed a little background, and a little definition, a little purpose…

And then the son of a biscuit stole my whole story! He’s none of the four dried up, dowdy guys I’d so carefully designed. He’s young, he’s brave, and he’s innocent.   Suddenly, the four guys are bit players to this kid’s story. What the heck? It’s like Ensign Checkov taking over the Enterprise! R2D2 piloting the Millennium Falcon. Wait, what?

All seriousness aside, I’ve been thinking about this story for a while now. My first novel was a labor of love – and very, very hard to write, rewrite, and… I think I’m on the seventh version. The second novel was just plain fun – I wanted to explore Elizabethan words, and magic, and make a young adult story that was positive and generous.

This new one, tentatively called The Terrible (I think I mentioned this already – please try to keep up), is my story. It’s my… my way of giving back. It’s set on the French/Spanish border in the year 1657. No, it’s not the Three Musketeers, but that book has always been my go-to for inspiration and grounding.

So, The Terrible is the story I was created to tell. It’s the novel that I became a writer to write. It’s the story – I think. I know you have a story like that – it’s why you write.

If it turns out bad, I’ll come up with some clever way to dismiss it. But, it won’t be bad, because this is the story. This is my story.

But, and here’s the part that is just crazy, this new guy’s story isn’t mine. I’m somewhere in this book, but I haven’t found out where. You know the guy has power, because he took over my whole dang life story just by getting named!

More to follow…

 

 

Do that Thing that You Do

 

You. Put down those fish crackers, I’m talking to you. Serious – this is a serious talk. No goofing around about anything. Just drop the crackers.

So, what do you do? Me? I’m a writer. It’s what I do. Technical writing, a little marketing, a little blogging, a couple of novels, a couple of short stories. It’s what I do. Working on a screenplay right now.

In fact, thank you for asking, it’s a screenplay based on my own novel, Droppington Place. It’s a funny story… well, okay. You’re right. We’re being serious here.

Have you seen Kubo and the Two Strings? Lovely picture, although a tad sad. It was made by LAIKA, a film studio in Oregon that makes handcrafted, stunningly animated movies. What could be a better fit? What better film company to make a major motion picture out of Droppington Place?

As you know, I’m a proponent of Gorilla Marketing – do little, expect lots. In this mode, we ask ourselves why we must go through all the hassle of selling millions of books. Why could we not simply approach LAIKA directly, make the motion picture, and then sell the millions of books? You know, it’s not really putting the cart before the horse: it’s more like they’re side-by-side. Boom. Anything could happen.

So I set myself out to write a screenplay from the novel. Piece of cake. I know the book forwards and backwards. What if I simply move these scenes around to make it more, you know, cinematographically friendly?

Well, three things happened. Three. You were expecting two, but, hey, it was three. Sorry to disappoint.

First, in reordering the book for cinematographic friendliness, I found a much better flow to the story. Rats. Now the book needs a rewrite.

Second, in retelling the story for the large screen, I found some motivations for characters I hadn’t seen before. Rats. See above.

Third, I had a revelation. A very sad, very tawdry little revelatory affair that hurts to write about, but you’re a writer. You know how it is.

Shakespeare is quoted as having written, “to thine own self be true.”

I was on an airplane, struggling with the screenplay, when the words came to me. Poop, I thought. I don’t want to hear these words.

The words came as clearly to me as if I had written them myself, but I’m not this good. It was simple poetry, and it hurt to read. It said, “write what you want and it’ll be great.”

Write what you want and it’ll be great.

Stop plotting and planning and pushing and prodding. Stop massaging and manipulating and maneuvering and marketing. What’s in here (taps on chest) is what’s important.

“Your lungs?” I asked.

I have written what I hope will sell, and hope you will buy. I haven’t written the Great American Novel. I’ve written something clever and fun and creative, and that I think you’ll like. I like it.

But the calling is to write what’s inside, and I don’t think it’s about my lungs.

What is the story I was created to tell? What can I give to you that will be great enough to make you think, wow, my life is now better? What epic saga lies inside here (taps on chest)?

Poop.

So, compadre, we have to saddle up another horse. It’s a long ride ahead, and now there’s another wagon to pull. Please don’t put the saddle on the horse that’s supposed to pull the wagon – you’ll just confuse things.

Okay. You can go back to your fish crackers now.

Let the Marketers Market

image

You’re washing your face in the bathroom sink. The warm water makes a pleasant gurgle as it swirls down the drain. It’s California, so you don’t run the water too long.

Suddenly, the water reverses course, and comes up out of the drain.  Thinking quickly, you shut off the tap. No good. The water is gray and malicious, and soon the sink is full. It stops filling before the water spills over the edge, but just barely.

So? What do you do? The sink is full, which means the pipes under the sink are full. Are you a plumber?

In my household, I would attempt to fix it, would flood the bathroom, and never hear the end of it from my wife and teenaged daughter.

“Why don’t you just call a plumber?”

“I can fix it, honey! See, it’s just a… oh.”

Slosh, gush. Gaglub, gaglub, gaglub.

“Nice going, Dad.”

You’re a writer. You know how it is. We write, you and I. Unless you’re a marketing writer, the whole business of promotion and publicity is outside our bailiwick.

So, here we are in the world of self-publishing. I did all the work – I wrote Droppington Place, I edited it, had it read and ignored by family and friends, I published it, I created a Facebook page for Phineas Caswell, I opened a website,  PhineasCaswell, and I even bought a book about Dummies marketing on Facebook.

So far, I’ve sold 4 copies of the book – three to people I know and one that might actually be legit.

By day, I’m a technical writer/illustrator. I do what I do because I enjoy it, and am good at it. I’m not a plumber, although I do get my hands wet upon occasion. But, I am a miserable excuse for a plumber.

So, my writer friend, must it be true with marketing. Here we are in the most freewheeling, enabled, and unshackled time in history for writers – dude, anyone could read your book right now! – but are fettered at the gate of success by a lack of time and marketing knowhow.

The answer is to let the plumbers plumb and the marketers market. The answer is the same as it always was: do what you do best. If you need the help of a specialist, for goodness sake, hire the specialist!  Unless you can do your own dentistry.

As for me, I’ve got to fix this sink before my wife gets home… it’ll all be done and she won’t even know I did it myself until I tell her!

Crack. Gaglu, gaglug, gaglug…

Make Yourself a Magic Virus

Build the San Salvador 4

If you’re sick, don’t read this post. There’s a stupid wordplay about viruses that is, well, so bad that we’re just going to skip it.

When you have just under two minutes free, watch this video: Build the San Salvador 4. How about now?

You know how people eat up those “dude, you had one job” videos? That was the thinking behind this little gem. Have to tell you, it still cracks me up, and I had a hand in making it.

So, why make a movie – especially one as dumb as this?

Three little words, my friend. No, not I love you. Or hands up, suckah. No, no, no… and no, not no, no, no either. Magic, she gasped. Ah, yes, our mantra/manta/bantha.

It’s a tight circle, my friend, this marketing thing. At the end of the video, which is calculated to be just funny enough to appeal to a certain age – the very age I’m hoping will read Droppington Place – is my new little logo, and the whispered word “magic.”

So you, you’re so fascinated by the video, you type in PhineasCaswell.Com, just like you see it in the image at the end of the hilarious video, and there is a link to Droppington Place. You click on the link – blink – why, here’s a nifty book for you to read!

Like a spider’s web, one slimy tendril at a time, you have no choice but to be roped into reading at least the free sample. Bwahahahahahaha.

It didn’t take a great deal of effort to make the motion picture. Sort of like, really? And all this linking is sort of sleep-inducing. And, at the end of the day, YOU have to do all the clicking and reading and stuff.

NOW you can see how Gorilla Marketing works… or doesn’t work, because I’m not doing much work… oy, this get’s confusing.

So, click on the link (HERE it is again in case you can’t find it up there), and repeat after me:

“Magic,” she gasped.

If you’d like to read all of Droppington Place for free, go HERE, and tell ’em you’re not paying a dime today, thank you. Boom. Freebie!

“Magic,” She Gasped.

Magic She Gasped Little Black2

“Magic,” she gasped.

Say it again: “Magic,” she gasped.

Tell your friends to say it: “Magic,” she gasped.

It’s a mantra, unless that’s the bat-shaped fish. Whisper it in your sleep.

“Magic,” she gasped.

What is it? What does it mean? Why should you care?

What makes a Subaru a Subaru? Actually, Subaru puts a comma in their statement – a comma with which I have never agreed. Love, it’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru. What does that second comma do? It makes a clause out of “it’s what makes a Subaru,” which isn’t a clause at all. It equally makes a clause out of “Love a Subaru,” which is a clause, but  is so widely separated by the non-clause that you have to remove the non-clause to see it, by which time you’ve simply beaten the whole darned thing to death…and doesn’t make me what to buy the car because they have trouble with punctuation.

“Magic,” she gasped. It’s a mantra, or manta. Or Banta if you’re into Star Wars.

I was trying to come up with a way to sell my book, and the only catchphrase I could think of was “buy my book.”

Hmmm, lacks a little something.

Hailey, one of the characters in my novel, Droppington Place, has a fascination with magic – just to point out that there, right in that sentence, is the proper use of commas to separate a clause – which causes her to utter the mantra/manta/banta phrase. Several times throughout the story she gasps the word “magic,” in what I sincerely hope is a running joke.

So, you see, sometimes your characters can give you a hint on what’s special in your work.

But, here’s the dealio, the thing, the bomb, the cat’s pajamas: What happens if you Google search “murder, she gasped”? Well, probably nothing yet, because I just loaded the tags.

But eventually, my impatient friend, you’ll go to either Phineas Caswell’s home page at PhineasCaswell.com, or to his Smashwords Droppington Place page.

If you simply Google Phineas Caswell, whose name appears beneath the logo, brings you all manner of Droppington Placey options.

Is this marketing genius? Does Procter and Gamble sell soap?

Or is it simply some degree of self-delusion that I’m making progress in marketing my book? Self-delusional like a fox!!!

Already, the pieces are falling into place…bwahahahahah.

You, because you’re a friend, can actually skip all the marketing hype and get Droppington Place by simply clicking HERE. When you get there, type in this Coupon Code: NJ38D, and you can get the book for free!!!

Why, that seems almost like…

“Magic,” she gasped.

 

 

 

 

Goodbye, Baby

DP FinishedStand by to eject bathwater on my mark.

Standing by, sir.

And…mark.

The bathwater is terminated.

Nice shooting, Lieutenant.

Roger that. The baby is outta here. Repeat: the baby is out of here.

Big ten four. Stand by for towelage.

Uh, negatory. Sorry. No can do.

Disregard that. Stand by to commence towelage on my mark.

Uh, sorry, skipper. No can do.

All hands, stand by. What’s with this gloomy Gus guff, Lieutenant. I believe I gave you an order.

Ten four on that, skipper. But, we don’t have, a, well…

Don’t tell me you ran out of towels.

Negative, sir. It’s just that, well, we ejected the baby with the bathwater.

Mongo Santamaria! You’re telling me we tossed the kid out the window?

Like a bullet, sir.

Well, there goes the towelage. All hands, prepare for battle stations. Angry mom at eight o’clock!

It turns out, writing a book is great fun. And it is great fun. Even though your imaginary friends, all those little voices in your head, drag you through the very depths of despair and pain and agony, the fact that you share that with them, that you are a witness to their travails – is an honor and a delight.

Oh, sure. That’s the cat’s pajamas, that part. Like ice cream for dinner every night of the week. Best of all, you tell all your friends that writing is the pits, it’s the worst – you feel like a zombie…hour after hour, typing, thinking, scribbling, coffee, beer, whatever. While, actually, your inner you goes “teehee, this is the best!”

Welp. The party’s over. They ate the pretty balloons. It’s crying time again, and you’re gonna leave me – I can see that faraway look in your eyes. Why must we get offa this cloud?

BECAUSE I PUBLISHED MY BOOK!!!

Yes, there is one more moment of glee, and that is when you join the Club of Shakespeare. All the world is a willing audience, hungry for your written words, longing for your thoughts, your ideas… and, once the book is published… Yo, lookit me, feedin’ the masses!

It’s a cerebral joy, and stunningly short-lived. I found no Disney at my door. Discovered Dreamworks dreaming of someone else. Ran across Random House randomly choosing someone else’s house.

No, the party’s over. Now comes the drudgery, the mind-numbing torture, of figuring out how to market this darned thing for real. It’s no longer a game, or a funny idea. Now it’s work, work, work, to get this product sold and out, into the sunshine where it belongs.

What? What’s that? How can you find it? Well, bless your generous soul, you have come to the right place. Let me pull your chair closer to the fire. Move it, dog. Make way for this most spectacular person.

Because you are you, and you’re a friend, I’ll let you have the book…for free!

No strings attached. Freebie. You go. Although, if you found it in your heart to write a dazzling review, I’m sure no one would be opposed to that…

Find DROPPINGTON PLACE here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/618049

Now, this is important: type in the coupon code NJ38D. When you do, the most wonderful book you’ll download with your free coupon will be yours – for free!!!

Of course, you could also visit the author’s site, PhineasCaswell.com.

Now, to find that baby…

You are the One – Bring Your Wallet

Cow

In the writing business… that is, the business end of the writer’s business, although the writer’s business isn’t business at all, but art – this gets so confusing – not the business of writing art, the business of selling the art, which is a business unto itself, but we’re not talking about that. Actually we are, sort of… you’re a writer, you know how it is…

Restart.

If you are a writer, and you don’t have an agent, you need one. Yes, you can self-publish your novel, but who is going to sell your book for you? You? You’re a writer. You need an agent.

Finding an agent, well that’s the business end of writing. But agents don’t seem to drop out of trees, even if you’re absolutely, fantastically talented. I know this from personal experience. That dog don’t hunt. That ship has sailed. You can’t handle the truth.

So, you advertise, in a million different ways. You blog. You join writer’s circles and clubs and chats, and comment your brains out on other people’s stuff. You work like a monkey to get your name at the top of an agent’s mystical list, the agent’s short list, the who’s who of writers in the agent’s Rolodex. Rolodex – boy, that’s a piece of history, huh? Raise your hand if you know what a Rolodex is… uh huh, as I thought. Paltry, paltry.

At the end of the day, you have to face it: you’re marketing – advertising – in the hopes of getting an agent to look at you and say “wow, now THERE’s a talent!”

In the world of Gorilla Marketing, all this effort, all this subtle, almost not work at all, is aimed at just one person. Millions of readers, or in my case, half-dozens of readers, see your blog and comments, read your name… and move on to something else.

It’s like being a daisy in the middle of the tall grass – oh please, Ms. Cow, pick me, pick me! You stand up tall, doing your flowery best to grab a little bit of bovine attention… oh, puleeze…. Of course, nobody wins in the cow analogy. Literary agents are insulted, and you get eaten if you win. But, you get the point.

The point is that if Toyota gets you to run down to your local dealership and buy a car because you saw a good ad on TV, it doesn’t matter if they wasted the time of 30 million other viewers, so long as you buy the car. No, you don’t suffer from incontinence, but some poor sap does, and those commercials might just be the ticket… say, I didn’t know they made underpants like that!

The point is this: you market your keester off, in the hope that one, just one, single set of eyeballs, sees your stuff and says a quiet “bingo.” And when that one sees your stuff and mutters and magic phrase, all your Gorilla Marketing effort pays off, and the future is yours to pave.

Well, here’s to you, my marketing friend. May you hear a whispered “bingo” soon!

Now, if you’re an agent, you can find the first two chapters of my book here: PhineasCaswell.com.

Thank you.

Gorilla Marketing – Again

adult_gorilla_costume_mascot

If you’ve read earlier posts here, you’ll know I’m developing a theory called “gorilla marketing.”

It’s really quite simple: you don’t do anything, and people beat a path to your door.  Usually they bring loads of cash, and things turn out great.

Well, you don’t do nothing, actually. You do some stuff – you know, little marketing things that get people reading you and believing in you and eventually giving you the oodles of cash.

So, here, without any ballyhoo or marketing phrasing, is my pitch: the second chapter of my novel, Droppington Place, is posted on the web, here. It’s totally free.

Read it now, as the price is sure to go up.

Take out your marketing pencils, kids, and let’s just do a little analysis.

Interesting proposal – check.

Product offering – check.

Call to action – check.

Free offer – check.

Dude, it’s all there, and we haven’t really done any work. See how easy this was?

Now, for you to do your part. This involves oodles of cash, so you might want to take some notes…

Just to recap: Chapter 2 of Droppington Place is now ready to read, and you got a nice, healthy sampling of Gorilla Marketing in action.

Wow. What a great day!

Pass me a banana, would you?

 

 

Old Friends and New Ideas: A Marketing Ploy

DPCover 11-23A

It’s not good to close doors. I mean, obviously, if there’s a bear out there in the backyard, you probably don’t want to leave the kitchen door hanging open. But, in general, a closed door means something’s wrong.

The gusty winds of life sometimes close doors you meant to leave open. You think things are swimming along fine, and everybody in your life is exactly where they’re supposed to be, but, whammo, out of nowhere, you find a door has been closed.

It could be the gusty winds of life, or the dusty gathering of old age. But, most likely, the doors swing shut through inattention. Yours. Yep. There it is. You have to look in the mirror for that one, and admit, uh oh, you fell asleep.

Uh oh, Mr. Van Winkle, the kids have grown up and moved to Barstow. How did this happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were all so chummy? Now you’re over there, and they’re way over here, and how did you grow so far apart?

It can take a lot of work to open an old door, but it will almost always be worth it. Unless that door leads to a cranky ex to whom you owe money, you’ll usually find a warm and welcome heart, one that is just as surprised as you that the door swung shut.

A door opening to a long-time-ago besty was the inspiration for this bit of news: DROPPINGTON PLACE, Chapter 1, has been rewritten, and is better than ever! Sadly, you won’t find it on this site. But you WILL find it over here, and you can have some fun while there.

The re-opening of a door that was never shut in anger, only through inattention, is a great cause for celebration, and you’re invited to celebrate, too. Enjoy Chapter 1 of Droppington Place.

Did you notice that clever piece of marketing work right there? Dang, that is some fancy voodoo. Your heartstrings are all tied up in little knots about that door thing, and, boom, your right into the novel. You have to admit, that’s the good stuff. Now, if there was just a way to make a nickel from that!

So, here’s your job for today: first, go read Chapter 1 of Droppington Place. It doesn’t have anything to do with opening doors, but will make me feel better. Next, think, think, think about a door you have let swing shut, and go open ‘er up. You’ll be glad you did!

 

Work It Like You Stole It

DPCover 11-23A

 

Some stuff is not really free – like when you buy a used car and they say it’s new to you, or when you swipe the newspaper from some guy’s porch, that paper is free to you. You know, if you discount the black mark on your otherwise spotless soul, and can overlook seeing the guy sobbing over his lost paper – “wh…where is it? I needed those coupons!”, then it’s free.

The same could be said of online piracy. That app that lets you that lets you rip an MP3 from a YouTube video can’t be very legal, although the market for the harmonica version of the Star Wars theme has to be painfully small.

When you donate your junk to the thrift store, though, you offer that stuff up for free. You’re never going to wear those bell-bottom jeans again, are you? That BeeGees Greatest Hits 8-track? So, while those are junk to you, there’s somebody out there shopping in the thrift store that just needs a pair of jeans, and will overlook the funky legs. You gave them away for free, but they had value to somebody.

That’s like this software. It’s so old that it positively creaks when you run it. But it runs. And it’s powerful. And it’s free. That last part’s the most exciting.

If you know Adobe InDesign, you know it’s a fantastic layout program, for anything from greeting cards to websites. This is version CS2, which was popular with the Flintstones, but it has all the functionality that was available away back then.

Adobe Illustrator is great, no matter what version you run. That has to be said first, because this is version CS2. No, it doesn’t feature paste-in-place, which, if you are the graphic artist type, is God’s gift to software. But it does have Duplicate, which is almost the same thing.

And Adobe PhotoShop. For Free? Hello? McFly? PhotoShop is so ubiquitous (which, it turns out, is not another word for a biscuit mix) as to be a verb on its own, as in that picture was clearly photoshopped.

In fact, the marvelously free Illustrator software was used to create the illustration for this post – yes, that’s right. The children in the lower left were hand drawn, but were image-traced into the drawing.

Oh, the things you can do!

So, free? Yes, f-r-e-e that spells free. There’s an adage that says if the product is free, you are the product, but in this case it doesn’t apply. In this case, someone found a link to software that is no value to its maker, like that groovy BeeGees tape, but still has value in the world.

Here’s the caveat – if there wasn’t a caveat, you’d need to suspicious – the software will ask you to register it. Don’t do that. It’s old, old software, and there is no registration available for it: the commands are embedded in the code, that’s all. Don’t register it, but use the heck out of it. Get this: it’s FREE!

Here’s the link: http://techspot.com/ . This will get you started with PhotoShop. Search for “Illustrator CS2” and “InDesign CS2”, and you’ll find them.

Happy softwaring!

 

Always Be Marketing

ShipsFighting

You noticed in my last post how I cleverly mentioned the name of my second novel, DROPPINGTON PLACE? Well, did you notice that I just mentioned it again? Boom. Right past you, there, huh? That, my friend, is marketing.

Well, actually, it’s not, because you are the only one reading this post. But, if I had, like, a million readers, boom… see?

Here’s another one: I put Chapter 14 on MARIGOLD’S END, my first novel, on the Pages part of this website. Huh? Did you see that? Huh? Right there.  Boom.

The theory we’re testing here is exposure. Repetition. Repeating the name over and over. If you look over my posts, you’ll see a preponderance of pirate pictures. Ah, another part of the theory.

If the theory of repetition holds true, when I finally get MARIGOLD’S END pried out of the hands of my stalled editor and published, there will be a line of people waiting to buy it. It will virtually be a line… or maybe a virtual line. Maybe a hypothetical line. Maybe a line of one. Me.

But that’s the gamble of marketing, upsides and downturns. Read the chapter. Leave a comment. Boom. You are marketed.

Bad Guys Need Not Apply

Badguy

Enjoyed quite a bit of Tomorrowland, the new Disney marketing vehic…film. The message is a little preachy, but, at the 80% mark I realized that there were no bad guys. How cool is that? An interesting, provocative film without an antagonist.   Oops, put down that optimism, sonny, here he comes now. Bwah-ha-ha!

Bad guys in art must be a gimmick. While there are certainly bad guys in the world – if you are one, please raise your hand. Look around, kids. See? None of your friends are bad guys – overall, we’re a pretty good lot.

You know this is true, not because it rhymes, but because, if there were as many bad guys on the street as there are in the movies –on a bad-guys-per-picture ratio – you’d be lucky to get home at night. We’d be up to our armpits in evil.

My story is about a good guy who has to face out some bad guys in the meanest part of town… please. The bad guys are a contrivance, a means of creating conflict because all stories must have a central conflict.

Superheroes. How can you have a superhero if there is no evil to overcome? As an author, you must create super-villains to challenge your superhero. Boy. That sounds like comic book stuff… oh yeah, superheroes come from comic books.

In the real world, take a walk in a certain part of town and you will find disadvantaged people willing to prey on you. And, you’ll find unkind, even bad people preying on them. A real superhero would be down in that part of town, not battling super-evil geniuses, but correcting the societal imbalances that create a bad part of town in the first place.

Because life isn’t about bad guys. The conflicts in life don’t usually come from a ne’er-do-well trying to do you in. Go ahead. Shoot me. I was getting kind of bored anyway.

No, the conflict in life is much more sophisticated. It’s that ticking noise in the car. The hesitation when she says “I love you, too.” It’s the never-ending debt that hides behind you, altering your judgments.

It’s the frustration you feel when things don’t go your way. When you could do more, but don’t. When you could say the right thing, but stay silent. When the parade marches down the street, and you’re standing on the sidelines.

There are no bad guys there.

This diatribe is brought to you by my newest novel, DROPPINGTON PLACE. It’s a charming little story about an earnest boy from a broken family struggling through his parents’ recent breakup while trapped in a magical world fashioned from paper by an Elizabethan playwright. No contrivances here! I tried to make bad guys, but couldn’t . Even the scariest guy, the master sorcerer, turns out to be pretty fun.

So, when you sit down to write the great American story, maybe the story isn’t really about good guys triumphing over bad guys. Maybe it’s more basic than that. Maybe it’s about regular folks doing their best against challenging circumstances.

If you must have a bad guy, maybe you could, like, make him move away in the first chapter. Or, better, make him be a chronic cough that pops up at the worst possible moment. Yeah, triumph over that little beauty!

Shameless Marketing

BS Closeup

Go ahead, say what you will. Get it out of your system. Shameless, tasteless, bad form, bad ‘cess to it. Fie on thee. There you go. Are you through?

The cause of this invective, as you well know, is that I put together a cute little video about a model sailing ship, announcing its YouTube launch on a sister page, Droppington Place.

Nobody watches it, but, well, as you’re the only person reading this post, low ratings are no shock to me. Rather a low par for a very lonely course. You’re a writer. You know how it goes.

So, there were some little cranky-making nits and gnats in the movie – not enough to stop a would-be Steven Spielberg like myself, but perhaps enough to make a would-be watcher say dude, what was that?

Although no one has watched the move, there is still the profession to be honored. Plus, one never knows.

Hours under the cinematic hood resulted in this: TA DA!!!

Hey, you say, I didn’t watch the other video, but this video sure looks the same.

You, my hyper-critical friend, are only halfway right. Yes, the majority of images are the same. But, there are some pretty big deal changes.

Some of the images are taken from other photography sessions – one shows even an incomplete ship. Ho HO, did not see that coming, did ya?

But, here’s the shameless marketing part – one of the images, a 7 second segment, shows the cover of my novel, MARIGOLD’S END. The cover features the same ship model, dramatically blowing up in the background.

Genius, I know.

AND, if you look carefully at that one shot of the crew on the deck, some joker cleverly inserted the face of yours truly in the background. Oh, so clever.

Say what you will, this is a great example of cross-platform marketing.

If somebody ever watched my video, they might wonder about what that dramatic book cover is.. about… and Google MARIGOLD’S END, and, bang, zoom, the circle remains unbroken.

Not only that, but the casual reader of Droppington Place, and there is only one of those, now has a link to the video, which leads back to the book. Ah, the web, the web…

Obviously, with only one reader and no video watcher, the full effect of my marketing tour-de-force has yet to be felt. But give it time…-150-200 years or so, and then we’ll have something about which to converse.

So, the video is here: Black Swan by Zvezda, and the launch article is here: Hello, Hollywood!

Zoom! You, my writer friend, have been mar-ke-ted… see how easy it is?

Next I think I’ll write a song…Marigold’s End, the Theme from Marigold’s End, the Phineas Caswell Adventure.

Now that’s a catchy title!

I’m likin’ it!

Time and the Fragile Character

image

You’re a writer. You know how it is.
The time to write…when is the right time to write? Now? Nope, busy reading this post. When you finish this post? Maybe. But, if you’re like me, there are a million other things to do. More important things. Scrub the toilets. Sort the recycling. You know, I’ve been meaning to seriously detail my Barcalounger.

And so, there the project sits. The characters have all gone speechless…nothing to say because you’re busily sorting the soup cans in the kitchen. Arranging the forks just so in the silverware drawer.

Life can be so crazily hectic that it becomes nearly impossible to cleave out the time to work on a project. And yet…and yet…maybe not so, grasshopper.

There is another agent in the mix…something to which you and I should pay attention. You won’t like it.

Once upon a time, a motivational speaker said that everybody’s tired. Tired of this, of that. Too tired to make a change. But, she said, what if I gave you a hundred thousand dollars of mad money? Then you wouldn’t be so tired, would you? You’d feel fresh and vibrant, alive with joie de vivre.

So, it ain’t the tireds. It’s the motivations.

That book gathering dust on your word processor? It ain’t the lack o’ time, me bucko. It’s the lack of motivation.

Well, jeepers Mr. Monkeypants. How do I fix that?

Good question, Sullivan.

Abuse some characters. Chop ’em up, or blow ’em up. Or make them say things so horrific that their world is forever altered.

Does it mess up your story line? Oh, heck yeah. Does it mess up the whole book?

“No,” Mr. Monkeypants says firmly, “your book was already messed up. That’s why you were busily knitting underwear for the pet salamander you were thinking about renting. That’s why counting the holes in the colander is more appealing that working.

Your. Book. Stinks.

It stinks so badly that even you, yes you, don’t want to put energy into it.

Admit it. Face it. Fix it.

Kill somebody. Blow something up. Sink the ship, burn down the house, turn Uncle Ray into a zombie. Ch-ch-change it.

Challenge your characters and you challenge yourself.

And if your book is so boring that you’d rather sort socks than write it, you need a good stiff challenge.

The time is there…are you?

Okay. I’m, like totally out of breath after writing that stuff. How about you?

You’re not writing your book because you’re reading this post.

So, I’m not working on DROPPINGTON PLACE because I’m writing this post. My bad.

Promise me you’ll do something to spark interest in your work.

Thank you. Now I have to figure out which guy to kill in my book! Continue reading “Time and the Fragile Character”

It’s Their Market – Let The Readers do the Work

BS at Sea 3

The most basic tenet of Gorilla Marketing is “let somebody else do the work. Do nothing and expect big results.”

In that spirit, I humbly present MARIGOLD’S END, Chapter Seven.

Aye, Chapter Seven. Taylor finds himself assigned to the galley, and Phineas discovers that Mr. Lourdburton is a…. hey, wait a minute. I see your trick. You’re trying to pry the story from me again. Well, it won’t work, me bucko!

Gorilla Marketing, Tenet One: make somebody else do the work. Playing my own game on me, were ya? Well, it won’t work. Although, I will tell you, this chapter is pretty cool.

Those of us that are newbies to this publishing game have to look at our written work a little differently than old, established hands. Our work doesn’t hold a candle to the latest piece by Rowling.

While ours might be just as good, we don’t have the name, the publicity, the chutzpah behind us. Somewhat lacking in marketing horsepower, are we.

Instead, you and I must look at our noveling efforts as an Enterprise. No book is a one-off. No road can be a simple what-if.

As I don’t have a huge number of remaining years to develop my Enterprise, I must rather compress my activities into a number of simultaneous projects.

In my Plan 2021, I’ve laid out sequels to DROPPINGTON PLACE and MARIGOLD’S END, and am putting thoughts together on a third series.

Holy Backers, Cratman, that’s a buncha novels, doncha think? Especially while you’re still learning how to write a novel in the first place? Enterprise, my friend. It’s all about the Enterprise. How many of these pieces will be written? Who knows. Maybe MARIGOLD’S END will be a runaway hit and I can find my estate in Ireland or something. Maybe a comet will hit us tomorrow and smash us all to smithereens.

Life is too short for what-ifs.

So, visit my Pages page, right now, before the comet hits, and rumble down here.

I know you’ve been keeping up – this new chapter is one sweet ride.

Take a Team Across the Stream

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You’re a writer – you know how it goes.

You’re working feverishly on a project, everything fits like fingers in a bowling ball. And then, when you absotively least expect it…whammo, like a two-by-four to the forehead: the deadly stall. A character says something that reveals a plot hole so big you could fit a Buick in it.

In DROPPINGTON PLACE we simply ran out of story. It was great fun, and everybody was lively and having a good time. And then, around 42,000 words or so, Arvy, a perfectly nice kid who was sadly turned to paper, paused and looked at me.

“I’m bored.”

“You can’t be bored!  You’re, like, a key player in this thing.”

“Yada, yada, yada…key player this. If I’m such a hotshot, give me something to do.”

A quick review of the Something To Do cabinet revealed empty shelves. And there Arvy sat, with so pained an expression he was impossible to look at.

That’s okay, because we can just change horses right here in the middle of the stream and work on another project that’s been a’hangin’ around.

A couple of weeks on the new project, just starting to feel it, and, son of a biscuit, here’s a new idea: something for Arvy to do.

“Leeme see, lemme see, lemme see!”

“Sit down, Arv…or, I guess sort of fold yourself ‘cuz you’re, like, made of paper…we need to plot this out a little bit.”

“Well, I categorically demand that you cease work on your new project and give me a challenge!”

So, we drop the reins on the new horse and leap back on the first one.

Their must be some old story about fording a river and changing horses in which something bad happened. I’ll bet you it has to do with Conestoga wagons. Let’s pretend it does, okay?

So, like, what’s the point?

I know, right?

The point is this: when you hit a creative wall with a project, it’s perfectly cool to start a new one. If the old one calls during the new project, it is equally cool to go on back to it.

One suggestion: make lots of notes on each project. Although today the plot thread is perfectly clear, tomorrow… well, after all, tomorrow is another day!

Frankly, Scarlett, I’m changing horses!

Gorilla Marketing, Phase Two

cropped-droppington2

You just gotta love a sequel, huh? What better way to follow up a mega blockbuster hit than with another blockbuster? Boom, looka that, folks, something even better!

Well, in the spirit of gorilla marketing, I’ll go you one better than a sequel.

Howzabout this; Chapter 2 of DROPPINGTON PLACE? Oh, yeah, uh-huh, fist-bumps all ‘round.

Wha-aa-aat? Sonny Jim, you’re just plain givin’ away the whole dignity-danged store!

No I aint, Pa. I swear it. It’s a new market thing program about monkeys. All the cool folks ‘r doing it.

In today’s hurly-burly, gotta-make-a-buck world, you have to stand out of the crowd. You have to be the one. The one. You. If you don’t, the world will run right over you.

Think about this Internet. Right this instant, you can look up, like, a gazillion books for free. Books on just about anything, and fiction, and graphic novels, and whatever you want.

When you put your hard-earned words into that maelstrom, unless you just happen to be a Hemingway, or a Rowling, or a King, or another author more current whose name I should know but don’t because I’m actually an uncultured boob, you get lost in that rush of online pieces, just another salmon in the dash upstream.

So, you have to stand out. You have to be different. You have to be the one sought out by your readers.

Enter the gorilla wearing a tie.

GO: “I say, old bean, why not publish your work in a blog first, eh?”

JR: “But, jeepers, Mr. Rilla…”

GO: “Go, please.”

JR: “Oh, okay. Goodbye.”

GO: “No, don’t leave, you ninny. Simply call me Go. No need to be formal.”

JR: “Oh. Anyway, Go,   nobody reads my blog.”

GO: “Surely someone does.”

JR: “Well, I guess there are quite a few…”

GO: “There you are. Publish your book, one chapter at a time, to your readers. They’ll read it, talk amongst themselves, and before long, why, they’ll be clamoring to… “

JR: “To buy my books?”

GO: “No, to have you hanged. I’ve read your stuff. You should be ashamed.”

So, in the spirit of Go Rilla, the marketing monkey…

GO: “Ape, if you please. Great ape, in fact.”

DROPPINGTON PLACE, Chapter 2, is now released on my Droppington Place blog, here. You can also follow the link at the bottom of this page to the Droppington Place site.

Enjoy!

Writing Forever

shake

I know you know this, so I guess there’s not much point to telling you about it. But, well, there it is, isn’t it?

I’ve been hating on my book, DROPPINGTON PLACE. Okay, well, not on the book itself, but on the writing of it. Some days it’s a blast, and the words flow like sweet cherry wine. The next day comes the roadblock, the stumbling block, the block of ice that freezes our soul and stalls us just plain dead in our tracks. I hate that block, too.

In my story, the characters explore a surrealistic world made entirely of paper. Their path takes them down, well, a path. So, how do we walk down this path?

Walking, and walking, and walking becomes so dull that even I can’t stand to write it.

Instead of walking and walking, the camera drifts up into the sky and looks down on them, telling us where they’ve been and what they’ve seen.

And THAT, my writer friend, is exactly where the roadblock landed. Flooomph, like a big rock in the highway to Interesting Storyland, we stepped out of the lives of the characters, the story became wooden and dull, and no fun to write. And, if you don’t have fun writing a piece, however is your reader going to enjoy it?

Ding-dong. Hello, Mr. Dimwit? Your brain is calling.

It’s a scene, of course. The answer is to place scenes along the path. Scenes that move the story forward even as they move the characters down the road. Cool, huh?

Biggity-big-big-bigger question.

Why do this? Why do you care about great paragraphs, and storylines, and why is it so important for you to put your thoughts on paper?

Why? Why must you publish your book? If writing is so important to you, why don’t you just write and write and let it go at that.

Okay, so maybe it’s not the writing, is it? It’s the reading.

You write your ideas and stories so that others will enjoy, will learn, will see the world in a new way. Isn’t that so?

So, here’s the rub: if you are so concerned about your reader seeing the world in a new way as a result of your work, why put your name on it? Okay, so it’s not just the reading. It’s the fame.

Before we go too far into our writer’s tools and processes, let us get this straight:

You and I are reaching for the brass ring of immortality.

Think about Shakespeare, a household word. Shakespearian theater. It defines a whole category of acting, of playwriting, of presentation. Why isn’t that you?

It could be. If your book is successful, if you find the right combination of story and character, you, my dear reader friend, could be the next Shakespeare, your name whispered and hailed and venerated for generations to come.

That’s immortality for us.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

Writing is a business. Success is not measured by finished works. It’s measured by works sold. Sold. Sounds bad, but it is the business.

Sell a million books and you’re doing good. Sell a million books a year and you’re on your way. Sell a million books a year and get a movie deal, and household wordism isn’t far away.

Isn’t that what you want? That’s what I want. I don’t think it will happen, but that doesn’t make me want it any less, or make me work any less hard in trying to get there.

So, go finish your book. Write well. I’m finishing mine. Maybe you’ll read it – maybe I’ll read yours. Maybe yours is so good that Disney is dialing the phone this very instant to make you the next Stephen King.

Hey, it could happen! Immortality could be that close. I’m sitting by the phone.

Marketing Ploy: Chapter Added

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Okay, no lies here. Only the straight up truth. Something inside says to publish the chapters of this book, one miserable week at at time, until the book is laid completely before you. So, submitted for your approval, MARIGOLD’S END, Chapter 3. You’ll find it over there, on the left, under the title MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel. See how it works?

So, why publish chapters of the book. Once you’ve read it, you’re not likely to buy, like, a dozen copies. Maybe you could – they make great Christmas presents and passable doorstops – but no one is holding their breath.

No, it’s something more fundamental than marketing. What is the WWW if not the marketplace of the world. What is the Internet, and the ability to publish whatever, whenever, if not a way to float ideas, to share thoughts, to trade our works of art with one another?

In Shakespeare’s time, he published his own work through a publisher, hoping that it would sell. But more than just hoping for a little quick cash, a little Elizabethan jingle-in-the-jeans, he had to write, had to publish, had to share his words.

You’re a writer, you understand. You do the blog thing as a way to express yourself.

More, this is marketing. While I want you to read this book, and  DROPPINGTON PLACE, my next book, I really want to impress in your mind that my books are good and entertaining and worth the paltry shekels one shells out for them. I’m not marketing these books, but their children.

Which, according to gorilla marketing, means I’m not marketing at all, but publicizing.  You, John or Jane Q. Public – isn’t it weird that John and Jane have the same middle initial? It must be Quincy – are not being marketed, but are reading a fine piece of publicity. No pictures, please.

So, go on over and click on MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel, and breeze through Chapter 3. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, and enjoy the publicity. No pictures, please.

BN Marketing Promise Kept

Apocolypse

I’d say this promise is kept by popular demand, but you, dear reader, and I both know that that’s not true, for there is only you and me in this cruel-hearted world. Please place your beer here – _____ – for crying into, later. For we have work to do now.

First and foremost: below you will find the outline for my book, DROPPINGTON PLACE, precisely as promised in yesterday’s post on Bare Naked Marketing. An important part of marketing, of course, is delivering on your promises. Some of those promises are implied. If you shell out several dollars for a Yugo, that the car has a steering wheel is implied, along with seats and a suitably tame headliner.   But a promise like “I will share this with you,” well, that’s a promise with no ifs, ands or butterumpusses about it.

If you were a playwright, you’d know this formula:

Act I: we meet the protagonist and his circumstances. All is well until, just at the end, something dreadful shatters his peaceful existence.

Act II: things gets worse and worse, more and more dire, nastier and nastier, until, at the very end of the act, the idea emerges that will save all.

Act III: we act on the idea, vanquish the dreadfulness, and resolve the manifold puzzles presented during the day. If it’s a musical, the audience walks out humming the overture.

In DROPPINGTON PLACE, we don’t have quite that much structure. You’ll find the outline over there, on the left of this site, under the strikingly original title DROPPINGTON PLACE: Outline.

So, there it is, you and I are sealed at the word processor. I share this with you in the hopes of giving you a window into my creative process.

I trust, of course, that we won’t see you running down the street with my outline in hand bellowing “Eureka! I know what to write!” That would bring bad juju, wouldn’t it?

Your ideas are always welcome – simply comment on this blog.

Stay tuned, dear reader. There are chapters, both of this book and MARIGOLD’S END, to follow.

 

Remember: no running.

Bare Naked Marketing

man-wearing-barrel-580115

Please disregard the provocative headline… nobody here is taking off their clothes. Probably.

So, whatever does one mean by bare naked marketing? Unlike guerilla marketing, which takes advantage of life’s nooks and crannies to broadcast one’s message, and unlike gorilla marketing, which is naked by default… seriously, how many gorillas look good in yoga pants… bare naked marketing is a new concept, proposed by yours truly.

BNM… the rule for technical writers goes like this: bare naked marketing (BNM), but that’s tedious… is organic marketing. As nobody reads this blog, I’ve decided to expose myself – all right, just my artistic soul – on my current project, DROPPINGTON PLACE.

We’ve already discussed designing the story, and I may have posted a chapter.  We have therefore already explored part of my new marketing ploy… I mean, plan.

BNM: starting tomorrow, you will get to see the writing process that goes into this book. The outline will be posted here, along with changes as they occur. Chapters, as they are finished, will be here, too.

Why BNM? You’re a writer, right? Well, so am I.  Does it not make sense to share our thoughts and processes? I mean, it’s not like some great big secret? Should it be? I think not!

So, starting tomorrow, visit here for the much ballyhooed Bare Naked MARKETING. Clothing on your part is entirely optional.

Designing a Book 

 

CarlsHouse

At first you think, whoa, I am, like, so going to write this book that it’s just going to be the best darned thing anybody has every gosh darned read. Then you sit down at the word processor…

It was a dark and stormy night…backspace, backspace, backspace

You may wonder why I’m dead… backspace, backspace, backspace

You’re not the boss of me, Timmy snarled… backspace, backspace, double backspace, control-X

All right, so, that knock at the front door is clearly not your muse, come to enlighten you…

My book, DROPPINGTON PLACE, has gone through iteration after iteration, the story orbiting around plot point after plot point, through about 17 “hot-dang, this’ll be good” rewrites, and finally sat down and breathed out.

That’s when Byron, the protagonist, stepped in. It turns out he really did have a story to tell – something serious he wanted to say. His story is actually pretty good – a little calm compared to previous editions of his book, but pretty good.

In the original story, Byron finds himself transported to a world of paper, run by a magical being called a homunculus. However will he get back? Assisted by two human friends and a couple of paper people, he eventually gets the homunculus to send him home. Yawnzers, kids. It’s a cool idea, but, like the paper world he visits, seriously flat.

Byron recently announced that he was not happy in the 3D world. His father has left. His mother has “episodes” that pull her emotionally far away, and he misses his best friend, left behind when they moved to a new town. He finds his escape from his woes by building paper houses.

The paper world into which he is thrust holds much more mystery for him, and might even be a place in which he can find respite. We spend most of the story wondering, with him, if the place is real or a dream. The homunculus is a paper copy of a 15th century playwright, and stands in as sort of a father figure for Byron.

We still have all the interesting paper stuff going on, and there’s a bad guy, but that’s no longer what drives the story.

The motor behind the story is Byron’s emotional arc, as he learns to cope with the many difficult issues he must face.

Fine, fine, well and good. Jeepers, mister, you’re a GENIUS, but having a character arc don’t do crackers for the structure of the book.

To remedy that ill, I broke the cracking-good synopsis for DROPPINGTON PLACE into chapters, to wit:

 “…

Chapter 2

At first the fascinating paper world is appealing, as it provides an escape from the woes of the real world. But, after seeing a 3D human like himself turned into a 2D paper person, he realizes he is in danger.

 

Chapter 3

 

Searching for a way out, he meets Hailey, a strikingly bright and hopeful 12 year old, who hopes to assist the tiny man requesting help. She uses her knowledge of magic, gained through reading a series of young-adult novels, to explain and understand the paper world. Together they witness Hobbs turn a 3D human into a 2D “flatso” as Byron calls them. They realize that Hobbs is the way out, and decide to visit his castle, Hobbs Manor…”

 

Now Byron can say all the stuff that’s important, but the rhythm of the book is a flow that can be managed and developed. Each character can say their important stuff, but this outline tells them when to say it.

 

There is a danger, my writer friend, of getting too detailed in the outline – I know some writers who fall into this sinister little trap. They write and write, not on the book, but in the outline, and solve all of their puzzles so thoroughly that they now see no need to write the book!

 

So, sketchy and loose, detailed but easy-peasy, that’s the road for Byron!

Writing at Disneyland

Image: Disneyexperience.com
Image: Disneyexperience.com

There’s something sort of crazy about being, well, sort of crazy. At the top of the list is that you don’t have to explain anything – well, I’m just sort of crazy like that.   You get lots of clever adjectives, like quirky, and different. And, because you’re just sort of crazy like that, you know, quirky and different, you find yourself with lots of free time on your hands. Let’s not invite her – you, know, she’s quirky and different.

This big and mighty world tries really hard to convince you that being busy is doing something. You can be busy all day long at Disneyland, but, what have you accomplished beyond exhausting yourself and dropping two hundred bucks to a guy in a mouse costume? Nothing, Jack. For all that busyness, you accomplished nothing.

So it is with we quirky, different writers, dontcha think? This endeavor right here, this very one you are reading, which hopefully brings a smile to your erstwhile lips and perhaps gives you something over which to mull when you are not busy being busy, may very well be busyness for the sake of busyness.

It occurred to me while thinking about marketing…I mean, promoting…my book, my mind spinning feverishly like a rabid squirrel in a hamster wheel, that there is nothing to do about marketing…I mean, promoting…my book until my adorable editor is done with it. For the record, she did say she thought this was the best so far, but had scarcely started chapter two. Sigh.

Without a product, what is there to promote?…coming soon from John Reinhart, the author who is, well, uh, is kinda waiting in limbo while his editor wraps up his glorious…wait, where ya going?

BUT, there is a sequel to MARIGOLD’S END, tentatively titled PELICAN’S WAY… there’s sort of a theme here, see, where the Marigold is a ship in the first novel that gets blown up…oh, poop, I spoiled the ending…double poop, because NOW I spoiled the ending by telling you that Phineas blows it up at the end of the book…oh, triple poop! So, see, Pelican is a ship in the next book that gets…well, you’ll have to read that one.

Anyway, the rabid squirrel brains rattled out a good synopsis of that book on Tuesday. And I must say, it’s a ripping good synopsis, as synopses go. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the quirky, different sort of crazy writer that I am, I sort of cracked out a terrific synopsis for my other series of books, called DROPPINGTON PLACE. For a preview of Droppington, scroll to the bottom of this page and you’ll see that I have a blog for that, too. Oh,  I’ve thought of everything.

So, while my lovely editor does everything other than edit my book, my NEW plan is to work on DROPPINGTON PLACE. And thus my hands will be busy.

But, is busyness productivity? If the words crackle and dance from your fingertips, but never get published, is that accomplishing anything?

Maybe that’s why my crazy, quirky, different friends are so fond of Disneyland.

Droppington Place – A New Neighborhood

Droppington

I’ve often wondered, but have been too lazy to explore, the link between the words journey and journalist. Both have the same root word, which means “day” in French.

Root words notwithstanding, this site has taken a most interesting road to get here: Droppington Place.

It began as a blog about a garden railway. My wife and I bought a house that had a working G-scale railway in the backyard. It was pretty cool, but rough, and not very well designed, which made running it with our young kids a bit of a challenge. The kids grew older and lost interest, and dogs and cats and nature all took their toll.

The blog chronicled the restoration of the railway from its semi-buried condition to an operational railroad. Along the way I realized I don’t like G-scale: at 1/18th scale, more or less, it’s too big for my taste. I say more or less, because the actual scale of G-scale is rather ambiguous, ranging from 1/18th to 1/32nd. Give me HO, at a constant 1/87th scale.

The URL for the blog, called  PoolsideRails.com, was devoted to chronicling the conversion of a G-scale garden railway to HO scale. Experts shook their heads and clucked: you can’t do HO outside. Well, it turns our they are correct. I found out that I don’t have the engineering finesse to pull off an outdoor HO railroad because, really, I don’t like model railroading. I like the miniatures.

So, away went  PoolsideRails and in came a new URL called Papertecture – an exploration of HO scale paper buildings with a whole section devoted to HO scale vehicles: I like little cars.

While all this was going on, I began working on a novel called Droppington Place, about a disenfranchised twelve year old who finds himself in a paper world run by a homunculus, a paper alchemical copy of a human being. It’s a pretty cool book.

Papertecture didn’t go anywhere. PoolsideRails didn’t go anywhere. The blog didn’t go anywhere. Because they were meant to come together here: Droppington Place.

Your reward: according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, journey comes from the twelfth century French word for “a day’s travel.” Journalism has at it’s root the word journal, which is a French word for a day, jornal in the 14th century. Some time in the 15th century it became synonymous with the word “diary.” Go figure.