Well, that’s new

On January 20, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching5 Comments

“He tried to pull the gas lines out on the stove and then he ejaculated all over everything” is not a sentence anyone has ever said to me at work before.

Argh blargle grumble grunt

On January 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking1 Comment

So… Friday was awesome, what with finishing the book and absolutely massive writing output and all. And I actually went to a party Saturday night, which really is not a Thing that I Do any longer. And I made dinner tonight. So I can’t reasonably make a claim that this was anything other than a good four-day weekend. But I apparently used all my words and all my thinkytimes for the rest of January on Friday, because holy hell have I been brainless since then.

I sent money to the cover artist for the new book today, too. I’m using Yvonne from Diverse Pixel again, who did the cover for the first Benevolence Archives book. We’ve talked about a design that I’m pretty excited about, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the end result looks like. I’ll share it here when I have something to share.

And… uh… that’s it. I’ll try and have something interesting to say this week.

vvzkc7oqwd2zgow1fs4z

Regarding yesterday’s posts

On January 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Two addenda and/or corrections, depending on how you feel about it:

FIRST, that my issue with Bank of America was solved without rancor or drama; they just moved the payment. Done.
SECOND, that along with the new cover of Along Came A Wolf apparently came a copy-edit, as the concerns that I had about occasional grammar issues in my (older) version of the ebook were not immediately apparent in the print edition that arrived yesterday. So you can erase that concern, and buy to your heart’s content. Whee!

From the “I’m a dumbass” files…

On January 18, 2015January 18, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy11 Comments

Without getting too deep into my financial status, I will say this: I have spent my thirties paying off less-than-optimal decisions I made in my twenties. The good news is that I’ve been pretty good at being in my thirties, and while I had hoped to be entirely free of credit card debt by my 40th birthday at one point and won’t make that date, I’ll be pretty damn close.

I currently have two open Bank of America cards; one that was originally opened from BoA and one that was actually the first credit card I ever had in my own name and has subsequently been acquired by them. One, the older one, has a zero balance. When I started beating on it, the balance was five figures. The other card is my current “target” card, and a big part of the obscene raise I received with the new job this year has gone to paying off this card. I tend to send them money twice a month a lot of the time.

Furthermore, the paycheck I just received last Friday is technically a “third paycheck”– meaning that I already have a Bills Paycheck and a Mortgage Paycheck in January, so I can literally spend this one on whatever I want. When it showed up, I took what was left in my checking account from my last paycheck and immediately sent it to Bank of America.

Tonight, planning on making another BoA payment now that I’ve figured out what I’m doing with the extra money, I logged in. And noticed that the extra money I’d sent them didn’t appear to have shown up.

A bit of investigation showed that somehow I had managed to make a $150 payment to the card with the zero balance, meaning that that card now has a -$150 balance in my favor.

Bank of America is one of the worst corporations ever, so I expect shenanigans when I try and fix this tomorrow, if I even can, because of course I discover this on the Sunday night before a national holiday.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

Sigh.

In which I need a nerd

On January 18, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek5 Comments

Hire engineers I need y’all to understand something: when most people say they need a nerd, they’re looking for me. And I am vastly unqualified to perform this task on my own, so when I say I need a nerd, I need a nerd. Like, nerdery is how you make your living.

Gotta be a couple of y’all out there somewhere, right?

Here’s what I want, and I can already think of three ways it’s complicated without knowing anything, so basically what I’m expecting is that the first person with any experience in app development who reads this will leave a comment telling me why it’s impossible. I am fairly obsessive about monitoring my sales numbers, right? I’m sure I’m not the only one. But as of right now that means monitoring three different websites several times a day.

(“Be less obsessive” is not the answer I’m looking for. I want a nerd, not a psychologist.)

I want a mobile app that monitors those websites for me, sends me a notification whenever I get a sale somewhere, and aggregates everything together in a bunch of lovely graphs and charts and other things. If it can monitor royalties and ping me when I get a review, too, that would be superb. Also an awesome bonus: exporting to Excel.

You can have all the credit for this awesome idea, which will surely make you a multimillionaire. Go go go!

On what “done” means, and other BA Vol. 2 musings

On January 17, 2015January 17, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing10 Comments

I’m actually going to start this off with the part where I ask for advice, because I’m not sure what the right thing to do here is, and I’m curious about what everyone might think:

FACT: At the moment, Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is never going to see print as a stand-alone book. With a word count in the 30K range, it’s simply too short to make it happen at a reasonable price point. It is possible that if I hit it big it’ll appear in some sort of super-special deluxe hardcover edition, but for now? No.
FACT: This does not change the fact that I want BA 1 to see print sooner or later.
FACT: Benevolence Archives, Volume 2 will be available both digitally and in print. I am hoping for both to be available on the same date, but don’t hold your breath. The ebook will definitely come first if the print version can’t be pulled together in time.
FACT: Not everyone who reads BA 2 will have read BA 1, but many people will already have downloaded some version of the book.
FACT: A lot of the people who downloaded BA 1 did it for free.

All that said:

OPTION ONE: Do a print edition of Benevolence Archives, Volume 2 as an omnibus, including both the short stories in BA 1 and the BA 2 novel. This will put the total word count in the 100K+ range.
OPTION TWO: Do two new print editions, one of BA 2 as a stand-alone, and an entire different book as an omnibus edition.

If I go the first route, I’ll have no choice but to charge a bit more for it. Therefore I run the risk of people being upset about possibly being charged twice for the same material. If I go the second route, there’s a good chance of confusion about exactly what people are buying setting in, and I’ll also have to order a second cover.

Right now, I’m leaning toward option one– of the only print edition of either title containing both of them. Future BA plans include the next book being another short story collection, so if I keep the pattern of short stories-novel-short stories-novel, I can just keep doing a print edition every other release. Unless people think this is insane.

Current release target: April. Late March is possible but I want some breathing room and right now that’s two months off. So I’m saying mid-April for now.

At the moment, the book is in my wife’s hands, and she’s doing the pre-alpha read. I will make some adjustments based on her read through and then I will post a call for alpha readers here. Alpha readers will be provided with a copy of the book as it stands at that time and some detailed instructions from me on what I’m looking for. Y’all will have about a month to get notes back to me.

If you’re interested in being an alpha reader, let me know in comments. This isn’t the “official” call– that’ll be a week or two away, and some of my alphas are going to be people I know in the real world– but it’s good to have an idea about who is interested in advance. My only rule is you have to be around here or Twitter often enough that I know who you are. You do not have to have read BA 1, although I’m assuming most folks who are interested will. Alphas will be compensated with an eventual free copy of the final version of the book. And with my eternal love and gratitude. But good luck spending that.

It has only just occurred to me that now that Skylights is in print I have actual physical merchandise that, in some universe, I might actually attempt to sell to people in a one-on-one, retail fashion. I gave a copy to the cover artist the other day, and the first words out of his mouth were to ask if he could order a bunch of copies for the next time he’s at C2E2. I did not immediately bring up the idea of doing a signing in his store, which is a thought so terrifying as to induce actual physical paralysis.

I probably ought to, though. While I’m at it, I probably ought to see if any local bookstores are interested in such things.

That seriously scares the hell out of me.

Review: ALONG CAME A WOLF, by Adam Dreece

On January 17, 2015January 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading3 Comments

Book-1-COVER-Sept2014-Along-Came-a-Wolf-by-Adam-Dreece-196x300 I promised at least three reviews of books by fellow independent authors, and this would be the third. I’ve owned a copy of Adam Dreece’s Along Came A Wolf for nearly as long as I’ve owned my Kindle, and based on (finally!) finishing the first book recently, I’ve ordered both it and its sequel in print form. As I’ve said repeatedly, print books sit on my unread shelf and stare at me until I get them read. My Kindle can’t do that, so print books always get read faster.

Dreece calls Along Came A Wolf and its sequels “Emergent Steampunk” (Breadcrumb Trail is available now at the same link above, and the third volume, All the King’s Men, is forthcoming,) which is an interesting choice, because I suspect most people aren’t going to know what the hell an emergent steampunk is until after they’ve read the book. The idea is this: technology is pretty highly variable depending on where you are and what you’re trying to do in Dreece’s world, but the world is almost at a point where steampunk-style technology is becoming available. One of the main characters in the book is an inventor, and there are hints everywhere that the things he’s working on are going to change the world.

Wolf is also YA, but it’s the kind of YA that adults won’t have any problems with, other than a few little references here and there that kids might not pick up on and grown-ups at least ought to, like the fact that the book is called Along Came a Wolf and the villain is named LeLoup. Or the Cochon brothers. (I’m not sure what part of Canada Dreece resides in, but I’m guessing it’s one of the Frenchier sections. EDIT: Calgary. Is that Frenchy? I don’t know Canada.) The inventor character I alluded to earlier is, in Dreece’s own words, a combination of Santa Claus and Nikola Tesla, which somehow works out super awesome.

I haven’t actually mentioned the titular Yellow Hoods. The three characters that make up this… group? Club? Organization? are Tee, a twelve-year-old girl who is the book’s main character, and her friends Elly and Richy. Elly and Richy aren’t nearly as well-drawn as Tee is, but watching the trio work together to solve their problems is fun. I won’t spoil the plot (Bad happens! They try and fix it!) but it’s a genuinely fun adventure and, well, like I said, I paid for it twice and have already bought the sequel.

~~One unfortunate criticism: the book does have some minor editing issues here and there, mostly coming in the form of slightly misused serial commas.~~ (EDIT: See here.) If you’re not a grammar purist it’s not something that’s going to bother you, and Dreece’s writing itself is of high quality, but… former Language Arts teacher. I’m a grammar purist. 🙂

A final note: I want to steal Dreece’s cover artist from him. I know the books have been through at least a couple of cover changes (the cover image on my version of the book is not the same as the one above) and the character work on his current set of covers is fantastic. Chain this person to a table so that he or she can’t get away. This is great work.

An actual conversation I had with a parent yesterday

On January 16, 2015January 16, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching18 Comments

Hi, Mr. Smith? This is Mr. Siler, I’m the <job title> at <school>. I have your daughter Sally with me right now. Do you have a moment?

No, sir, she’s not in trouble. In fact, she asked me to call you.

Yes, that’s correct.

Well, this morning she found me in the cafeteria and let me know that another student who sits near her had been smoking on the bus that morning. She reported that he was smoking marijuana, but as it turned out it was just cherry-flavored tobacco.

Yes, we’ve concluded our investigation and the situation’s being dealt with.

Yes, I’m quite happy that she spoke up. She did the right thing. But that’s not why I’m calling. Yes, this happened this morning. Several hours ago. I sent her to class right after she told me about it, but she’s only just now come back downstairs to my office.

Well, you see, Sally is very concerned that it’s possible that her clothing might still smell of this young man’s tobacco. She… uh… she says that you tend to smell her clothes before doing the laundry, and she’s very upset at the possibility that you might smell the tobacco on her clothing and think she’s been smoking.

Yes. She doesn’t want to get in trouble. She wanted to call you herself, but I told her I thought the story might be more convincing coming from me.

Yes. Really.

No. I smelled her sleeve– she, uh… she actually insisted that I do that. And I need you to understand that smelling a student’s clothes is not exactly a day-to-day job task around here. In fact I’ve been teaching for thirteen years and this is the first time a student has insisted that I smell them. I can’t smell a thing. Honestly, sir, I think she’s a little nuts.

Yes, she’s right here. She’s laughing, in fact. Would you like to talk to her? Okay. I’ll send her back to class, then. Thank you. Enjoy your weekend.