#88, to be precise.
Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is FREE TODAY! Go get your copy now if you haven’t already! It’s back to the extravagant price of $2.99 tomorrow!
(Top 100 is awesome. I want more. Go go go!)
Month: May 2014
Cards on the Table
Sourcerer: Right in every way that it is possible to be right.
Here I am in Mississippi. I’ve been trying to get out for well and good all my life. Mississippi is like a cage for the soul, but that’s not to say it’s a bad place.
We have nice weather, except during hurricane season. People mostly leave you alone and let you do your thing – as long as you’re a white, straight, 
Christian, well-spoken man. If you’re black, gay, don’t believe in Jesus, stutter, or happen to be a woman, well. Mississippi might give you a bit of trouble.
Earlier this year, we had a nasty fight over a bill in the Legislature that was basically an argument over whether businesses could turn paying customers away because of their sexual orientation. Mississippi said no to that. I know because I watched the debate on the floor of the state house of representatives, and the house couldn’t pass it as it was originally written.
Instead…
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Two early morning announcements
(Why am I not at work? Boy’s got a doctor’s appointment. Going in in the afternoon.)
ANNOUNCEMENT THE FIRST: Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 picked up another review yesterday, and while it was a four-star instead of the previous five-star I am just about equally happy with it. The author– and I’m especially pleased that, at least for the moment, I have no idea who it is– discusses a couple of aspects of the story that I’m glad to see mentioned in a review; I feel like I’m seeing a sign that I’m doing something right here. Whee!
ANNOUNCEMENT THE SECOND: For one day only– just today– Benevolence Archives, Vol, 1 is free at Amazon. The Kindle Select program I’m enrolled in gives me five of these free days for every ninety days the book is on sale, and since I haven’t sold anything in a couple of days (boo!) I decided to give a free day a try to see if I could coax a few extra copies out into the ecosystem out there. So go forth and download!
(I am, if I’m being honest, more than a bit conflicted about this, and I almost didn’t mention it here at all. I’ve spent a fair amount of time since the book went on sale on indie book author forums, and there is, to put it mildly, some debate about whether these free days are actually a good idea in the long term for authors. Plus I sorta feel like I’m shitting on the people who already bought the thing. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that none of the folks who did shell out some cash feel the same way. I may talk about this some more tonight– the boy’s doctor’s appointment is beckoning– but if you’ve been in a cash crunch lately or just been on the fence about buying, today might be a good day to jump. Back to regular price tomorrow, probably with some details about how well it did.)
On starting the day off right
Ugh. I was glad to come home and see the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer was live, because otherwise today was just an enormous pile of shit. The day started– and by “started,” I mean within ten minutes of walking into the door, with having to break up a rather impressively violent brawl between two eighth grade girls. Ever done that? It’s difficult. Four fistfuls of hair, then they hit the floor and start kicking at each other. I hit the floor with them eventually so there had to be an accident report and blah blah blah my job sucks blah blah blah. On the plus side, I thought the first day of ECA testing went really well; we’ll see how day two goes on Wednesday.
Decided today that I’m done hassling people on Facebook about the book; I’m pretty sure that everyone I know has been notified that I’ve written one and I’ve sold the copies I’m going to sell (well, mostly) among people I know. If I’m going to get much beyond the circle of people I either know or interact with on the blog (and, again, I’m pretty sure I can trace almost every single sale to someone I know) I’m going to have to come up with a better marketing solution.
Not to say that I have any good ideas at the moment. I’ve kinda done the rounds on the ebook promotion sites; we’ll see if anything comes from it. Between now and then, time to start working on the next thing. School’s out in three weeks; it would be good if I had a decent head start on planning the next book (and finally got around to those edits on Skylights) before then.
Tonight, though, I need to watch TV and then sleep for a thousand hours.
IS IT AUGUST YET
No, really. Is it August? Because it needs to be August.
GODZILLA review, among other things
It’s Sunday, so how about a grab bag post? Sure.
- Godzilla was exactly the movie I wanted. I read a review yesterday that called it the best summer movie since Jaws, and while I think that’s sliiiightly higher praise than it deserves I think it’s actually a pretty good movie to compare it to. Both films are masters of the slow build; you don’t see the shark for over an hour into Jaws and Godzilla is great about keeping the monster backgrounded until it’s time to see him. The humans are as good as they need to be; unlike, say, Pacific Rim, which felt the need for dumbass comic relief characters. The other thing? There are moments– several, in fact– of genuine beauty in the film, which is not something I’ve said about a summer blockbuster type of film before. The bit referenced in the movie poster there is the best example.
- All that said, I think they told Ken Watanabe that they were only paying him for one facial expression for the entire movie and if he used more than that one it was just too bad. I love Watanabe most of the time, but I think we’re going to see a memoir from him in ten or twelve years where he reveals that he doesn’t remember anything about filming Godzilla because he was high on painkillers for every second of the production. He spends the entire movie with this look of dazed shock on his face that, by the end of the film, is unintentionally hilarious.
- That’s my biggest complaint. Everything else? Awesome. If there is any chance that you will enjoy a movie called Godzilla then you should drop everything and go see this right now when you can see it with a big crowd.
- Related: People. If you show up on opening weekend of a big summer movie at 7:32 when the movie is supposed to start at 7:30? And there are tons of people in the shit seats at the front of the theater? Don’t bother climbing the stairs to go check on that empty seat in the corner. Some motherfucker in the bathroom has already claimed that seat, and every sumbitch in the floor seats already went and checked. You didn’t magically spot the one empty seat that everyone missed. Your ass is late. Go directly to the best of the remaining crappy seats because that’s all that’s left.
- Also: movie theater employees! I understand that it makes your life easier if I’ll move toward the middle. That said, and with all due respect, the answer is no. I didn’t show up half an hour early so that some dumb sumbitch who showed up late with a group of six can take my aisle seat at 7:35. I am a Person of Size and it’s better for everyone if I’m on the aisle. If you are dumb enough to show up at 7:35 for a 7:30 summer blockbuster on opening weekend you deserve shitty seats. I’m terribly sorry. Please don’t take it personally; I know you’re doing your job, and I ain’t mad atcha. But the answer is still no.
- It is not impossible that I will hit both 2700 blog followers and 200 Twitter followers today. You’re probably already following the blog, but do you Twitter? Hit up the timeline to the right and follow me!
- I have to mow the front lawn today and I’m actually looking forward to it, which frightens and confuses me. This may be a manifestation of Dear God Let School End Soon syndrome.
- I am finished with all lesson planning for the year, a full three weeks early, which has never happened once in my entire teaching career. That ready for the year to be over.
- Related: End of Course Assessments (ECA’s) for my Algebra class are tomorrow and Wednesday. All Indiana high school students are required to pass this test to graduate; the state lets the honors Algebra kids take it in eighth grade (seventh in some districts) and, well, it’s kind of a big deal. My school has never had more than about 60% of the kids pass in a single year. I will be pissed if I don’t get 80%. Amazingly, I’ll know the scores by the end of the week, assuming all of my kids are present for both of the tests. I’m actually more invested in them doing well here than I am in ISTEP scores. We’ll see how it goes.
New ways I’m stupid
The boy is taking a nap and I’ve unofficially determined that Creating Fiction is Not Happening Today. I just, and by “just” I mean five minutes ago, told my wife that I was going to go lie down in the bedroom for a while. We’ve got a date night tonight– we’re going to have dinner and then go see Godzilla, which is awesome, because a) Godzilla and b) it’ll give me two hours in which I probably won’t be obsessively monitoring book sales on Amazon like an asshole.
Anyway, yeah. Five minutes. Where am I? Here, in the office, typing nonsense on a screen instead of reading and catching a catnap like a sensible person. It may be time to abandon the novel I’m reading; anytime it takes me a week to get fifty pages into something it may be a sign that I’m not interested. But I have friends who love the series, so… yeah.
I have developed a fascination over the last few days with safety razors. This is not entirely a new phenomenon; it’s happened before, and I’ve managed to fight it off each time, but I don’t recall it striking me with the intensity that it has this time. I can’t allow myself to become someone who shaves with a non-cartridge razor. I am too clumsy to be waving sharp things around my face and I also have evolved my morning routine for maximum efficiency and speed, and taking fifteen minutes to carefully lather and shave and then clean everything up (without slicing my face to ribbons, because have I mentioned you can slice your face to ribbons with these things if you fuck up with them?) just doesn’t sound like something I’m really capable of doing. Plus? Expensive. It turns out that this has become an impressively complicated niche market, and the tools that the big boys say are necessary for a genuine safety razor shave run pricey at first. Of course, once you get set up you’re spending $.10 on razors for the rest of your life, so you catch up quick on the ridiculous price of cartridge razors, but then you cut your throat open and die when someone drops something heavy near you and startles you while you’re shaving.
(Also, my god, the complexity: what kind of razor? How long should the handle be? Did you know that razors are rated by “aggressiveness”? Soap or cream, and don’t you dare use shaving cream out of a can like a philistine. There are three thousand kinds of blades, some of which are considered far too sharp to be used by newbies. Should your brush be made of boar hair or badger? (Yes, boar and badger are the choices.) If badger, which of the four separate grades of badger hair would you like/can you afford? You know that your choice of boar or badger should probably correlate with the shaving soap/shaving cream dilemma, right? Aftershave? How much glycerine should be in your aftershave? Will you be buying a stand for your razor and your brush, or just leaving them on the countertop like a loser so that your son can grab them and circumcise himself? And are you prepared for just how ridiculously expensive stands can be? Would you like a referral to Pinterest, where they show you how to make one from a wire coat hanger? Yours won’t look like that, though.)
Here’s how I shave: in the shower, with water. The thought of shaving my face with a blade is scary enough; how the shit am I gonna handle shaving my scalp? With magic, apparently, or just by continuing to buy cartridges until I’m good enough to try the double-edge on my head. Ever cut your scalp while shaving, by the way? It bleeds like a motherfucker.
Oh, and I’ve determined to a fair degree of certainty that there are no stores anywhere anymore where I can actually buy any of this shit, so if I’m getting anything, I have to order it from Amazon sight unseen– which, man, is just my favorite thing– and then sit through a week of buyer’s remorse while I wait for everything to show up.
Then I can cut my face off. Whee!
BA 1 gets a ★★★★★ review!
Taylor Grace is rapidly becoming one of my favorite people; I think I owe her a car or something by now. She’s reviewed Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 over at Amazon! If you’re on the fence about buying it, check out her review:
The book is fast paced without leaving the reader in the dark. Things happen quickly and I had to keep turning the pages to see how on earth they were going to get out of this one. It took place in space but it wasn’t a weird, strange space where the oddities made me want to get back to earth, this space was familiar and fun. It had your slimy and scary characters but it also had touching moments and homey feelings.I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better first review, especially since this is so tailored to people who might not have looked at a science fiction book otherwise. Thanks, Taylor!
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