A Doctor Who Fan is Born

Ok, so I was born not so recently, but I am (rather ashamedly) quite new to the wonderful world of Doctor Who.  I know, I know.  Let the castigating begin.  It's not that I haven't wanted to get into it, it's just that for a long time, I'd just put it off, prioritized it lower that the myriad other science fiction, fantasy and horror shows and books out there begging for my attention.  There's a lot out there, and it can't all make the cut.

That being said, I finally got into it a while back, and I have to say, it's rather addictive.  It's hard to squeeze it into an already busy schedule, but as there should always be time for reading and watching material in one's chosen genre(s), in this household there is time for Doctor Who.

I'll admit, I'm not a really big "Whovian".  I don't know all the doctors, am only now learning all the cool lingo and trivia from it, and really couldn't carry on an intelligent conversation with someone regarding the show.  But I'm getting there.

I find it holds my attention well enough to adapt to my workout routine, that sadly isn't as regular as I'd like it to be.  A 45-minute show gives me a full half an hour on the elliptical machine, complete with warm up and cool down.  I put it on the Kindle and let it play while I burn off a few of those beers from the prior evening.  I call it my "Doctor Who workout".  Pure calorie-burning, endorphin-raising science fiction fun!  And the best thing is, it can be a "Firefly workout", a "Dollhouse workout", or whatever other type of workout you desire.

So don't go all spoiler-happy on me.  Let me figure out what happens in the plot all on my own.  Let me figure out which doctor is the coolest.  Like I said, I don't know much, but I do know one thing: I want a Tardis!

Tardis, © James Lelyveld

And I'm off to the elliptical machine!

Query Hell

Back to the obligatory pit of author despair known as Query Hell.  In other words, everything is back to normal.

Except for me, it's not really all that hellish anymore.  I've done it too long.  I've been at this game, off and on, for the better part of several decades.  To put it in perspective, when I submitted my very first short story to a magazine, skinny ties, pastels, and leg warmers were in style - everybody wanted to look like they'd come straight off Miami Vice.  The publishing world looked much different than it does today, mainly because of the online accessibility of information to authors.

Back in the day, I'd get out my well-worn Writer's Market guide and pour over it 'til I was half blind.  After compiling a number of submission-worthy candidates, I'd carefully print out the material I'd polished and crafted, stick it carefully inside a Manila envelope with an S.A.S.E., and take my submissions down to the post office.  Then I'd go back to writing, and one by one, the rejections would trickle in.  It was always an adventure getting the mail, wondering if that would be the day I'd find an actual acceptance.  I usually didn't, and became quite calloused to getting rejections.  I filed 'em all away, collecting them like trophies, keeping the giant stack like some badge of honor.  I figure I have well in excess of a couple hundred now.  I did get an acceptance finally, got the galleys and everything.  And then nothing.  Don't know if the magazine abruptly folded or what, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Of course, there were times, jetting around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam, that this just wasn't possible.  It's hard to mail submissions out and collect rejection slips if you're not home.  Long hiatuses from the submissions game have been pretty much the norm.

And things have gotten much easier with the advent of e-mail submissions.  A whole lot easier!  I never query via regular mail now.  I have no reason to.  Yes, there are still agents out there who do not accept e-queries, but at this point in time, wouldn't you be a little hesitant of an agent who hasn't caught up with technology enough to operate that way?  Hell, a lot of agents accept only e-queries.

It's far easier, too.  There's tons of information on agents out there.  What they're looking for, how to query them, what to include, pretty much anything an author would want to know.  It's a lot quicker, too.  No complicated envelope, S.A.S.E., trip to the post office, and waiting on the postman.  Just zip it off and watch your e-mail.  You already do anyway.  Now there's more time for writing.

Except that there's not.  That time has been replaced by blogging, and tweeting, and all the other endless forms of social media out there.  Most agents want an author to have a good online presence.  They want to see the author is engaged himself, has worked to market himself as much as possible already.  It makes their job all that much easier.

Looking back, things haven't gotten any easier, but I've gotten better at it.  The one thing that jumps out at me right away is how much better I understand the publishing industry.  Publishing Separate Worlds was a tremendous learning exercise for me.  This blog has been too, especially with all the research I've put into the Literary Agents tab and sidebar.  I know better how to find what I'm looking for, and how to write better what they're looking for.

So it's back to the trenches for now, writing, editing, pouring over submission guidelines and then trying not to mix 'em up with I send the queries out.  It's still frustrating at times, but I've gotten as jaded to rejections as literary agents are to bad queries, so it's all cool.  And hey, it's not personal, it's the way things are.

Separate Worlds

Atlantis and Earth have encountered one another before, so long ago that neither retains more than faded legends from the event. Now the rift between them has opened again. A collision is inevitable.

For the crew of the Olive Branch, the mission is a venture into never-before-charted territory. Theirs is a voyage to finally connect with intelligent life in space.

For the Atlanteans, the rift brings the actualization of something thought inconceivable - an alien invasion.

The possibilities for bridging the two worlds are virtually endless, but fate has a way of choosing its own outcome. Will harmony result, or will Earth and Atlantis be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?

Separate Worlds is an 11,000-word novella.


It's finished, folks!  After long last, and more time and painstaking work than I'd like to admit, it's done, and the House of Dalar is ready for a release party.  Champagne is in order tonight.  But before that, my sincere gratitude goes out to several people, without whom this story would not be nearly what it is.

First, I'd like to mention my graphic design artist, Todd Bréda.  He took my random thoughts and ideas and crafted them into a beautiful cover, which very aptly conveys the concepts and feel of the story.  He was also a pleasure to work with, and things went rather quickly once he got the idea of what I wanted for my cover art.  I've heard nothing but praise for the cover art.  Thank you, Todd!

The second person that deserves many thanks is my editor, Karin Cox.  She not only took on the extra workload during an especially hectic time, she not only provided excellent editorial advice and corrections, but did so more quickly than expected.  She also commented on some structural areas in the story, pointing out that the story would be better if I'd flesh them out a bit more.  And she was right - I'm far happier with the result now than I would have been without those edits.  Thank you, Karin!

I'd like to thank David Gaughran, whose blog (and advice) I found extremely helpful.  He's really been a pioneer in the self-publishing world, cutting through some of the stigma and misconceptions, and setting the record straight on a number of different areas.  He's also made it very easy to understand the process, and learn what's really necessary to produce a quality e-book that separates itself from the deluge of others out there.  Thank you, Dave!

I'd also like to mention Guido Henkel, whose incredibly helpful blog series on ebook formatting helped me get through the coding process and turn Separate Worlds from a word document into an actual ebook.  After pouring through his step-by-step advice, I was able to produce a book of far better quality than I otherwise would have been able to.  Thank you, Guido!

I also had a lot of help from family and friends to acquaintances to Navy colleagues, to some wonderfully intelligent folks over at Seahawks.NET.  Without your help and support, this book wouldn't be nearly what it is.  Thank you!

Producing a book of any size requires not only a lot of time, effort, and attention to detail, but it requires more than just the author alone.  After going through this process, that is more glaringly obvious to me than it had been before.  I realize this post has started to sound suspiciously like an Oscar acceptance speech, but I felt it had to be said.

And now I'm throwing the book out there to the wolves, out there for anyone to read.  I've tried to ensure it's as good as I can possibly get it, and that's all I can do.  Look for it from a variety of digital booksellers available soon for 99¢.

Update: Available now at Barnes & Noble for the NOOK eBook reader or on a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or Android smartphone enabled with their free NOOK eReading software.

Available now at Smashwords for Apple iPad/iBooks, Kindle devices and apps, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, Palm, most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, PCs, and others.  ISBN: 978-1-4658-4084-4.

Available now on Amazon for Kindle readers and apps.  ASIN: B0074U3LTQ.

Why do I even have a blog?

As you can see from snooping around this blog even a little, I'm not yet published.  I mean, I'm an author, but only because I say so.  You can't yet buy my stories, and I haven't yet made any money from them.  So why does a guy like me have an author's blog?

Well, to be fair, the foremost reason is because that's what the industry experts suggest.  They say to get your voice out there even before you're published, and that's what I'm doing.  So why would they advise this?  Why would an author with nothing to sell be advised to have an online presence?

First, establishing myself, however obscure, as a presence on the Internet before I'm published means I'm already ahead of the game when I do eventually publish.  I'm already ahead of the author who starts to blog, tweet, and otherwise connect at the same time his or her book is published.

Second, it shows that I'm already willing to work on publicity myself, to do what I need to do to get my stories visible, away from the dark claws of obscurity.  If I'm willing to work on things on my own, they know I'll work with them however they need in order to promote my books.  It's the sign of a good investment, and with the risks agents and publishers take with new authors, that's a good thing.

And third, it gives everyone - readers, agents, editors, publishers - a taste of my writing.  Sure, it's not the same as fiction, but it gives them a snapshot of the quality, style, and attention to detail that I likely (assuredly, actually) give my stories.  They can see my typos, or hopefully lack thereof, my grammar, my style and my voice.  Anything that allows a preview into what someone is getting makes it more enticing.

Aside from that, it allows anyone at a glance to see what type of stories I write.  It's right up there at the top: science fiction, horror, and fantasy.  You know instantly if you like the genres I write, and you know what to expect when you pick up one of my stories.

If you've been following my blog for any amount of time, you probably realize I intend to self-publish two novellas.  And you realize I'm behind my targeted schedule.  There are a couple reasons for this.  The first, and probably biggest reason is that a fractured ankle in the household has left me playing caregiver rather than maniacal wordslinger for much of the last couple of months.  I haven't been able to work nearly as much as I'd expected, but priorities being what they are, I'm fine with that.

Also, in talking with my amazingly cool editor, Karin Cox, I came to the conclusion my first story had a thread or two that needed more fleshing out to make it a much better story.  Every piece of quality advice I've found out there for self-publishers tells me the two things I had better get right are the cover and the editing process. Both are absolutely vital in producing a quality product, worthy of your hard-earned money.  And an author can't do that alone and be completely successful.  If my editor says my book would be better a certain way, then I'd damn well better listen.

Both these things, coupled with the normal family-centric holiday season, have left me woefully behind schedule.  It grates on me, knowing that schedules and deadlines are absolutely necessary in this business.  I'm still learning the ropes, but I should be able to function within the parameters I do know.

Whether I call these excuses or reasons, it all amounts to the same thing.  I'm working on it, I promise.  In fact, I've wrapped up the editing process and have begun the formatting.  Correctly formatting an e-book is a bit complicated, and involves a bit of HTML and other types of magical computer tomfoolery.  Sure, any idiot can zap a word document into the right format and have it uploaded and ready in an hour.  The problem with that is not every type of e-reader works well with formatting it the easy way, making it a very unprofessional looking product.

So bear with me just a while longer, while I wrangle through the correct way to format the book for all the major e-readers.  After all, if I'm taking your hard-earned money in good conscience, I want to make sure I have as professional a product as I can.

The Blackout Day

This site is not blacking out in protest.  It could have looked like this today:

It's not that I condone or support piracy, it's that I condone and support the United States Constitution and the freedom of speech.  This is not about theft; it's about censorship.  And until they figure out the right way to do it, I cannot in good conscience support it.

There would be little point of me going dark, other than a meaningless gesture of defiance, so I'm sharing my own take on the subject as well as links to a few other blog posts I've found that discuss the dangers of SOPA and PIPA.  I've written about this before, but it's an important subject, one everyone should understand.

I'm not the only one who has an opinion on this.  Author Chuck Wendig shares his awesome take on it over on his blog, Terrible Minds.  John Scalzi weighs in on it.  Chris Heald has another solid write-up on it.  Just Google it if you want to find more.  They're not completely blacked out, but they do not support the bill.  I'd tell you to use Wikipedia, but they're blacked out, which is what they'd be like if SOPA and PIPA pass.  Experts have weighed in on this subject.  And if you'd like to contribute your two cents on the subject, here is a good place to start.

And my thoughts on it?  I talked about the following points elsewhere, and thought I'd share here.  I've taken these points from the various experts speaking out against the bill and put them into my own words.  Feel free to use this information when writing to your government representative(s) or passing along information about the subject.

SOPA will cause serious additional problems, including the following:

1. It would negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity. This means it would cause more security breaches and less effective security, possibly at the expense of national defense and U.S. business and commercial interests. Military and corporate espionage is already a problem that negatively impacts the U.S. and our way of life. This would exacerbate that problem.

2. It would negatively impact Internet functionality by eroding DNS structure, which is the opposite of the way technology is supposed to work. This is counter-intuitive to basic progress.

3. It would delay the full adoption of DNSSEC and its security improvements over DNS, which is what Internet folks have been trying to do to improve virtual security. This would create a less secure Internet environment in the future, less secure than the one we now have security issues with.

4. It would assign liability to site owners for everything users post, without consideration for whether or not the user posted without permission. Site owners could face jail time or heavy fines, and DNS blacklisting. This would probably shut down a site like Seahawks.NET, or at the very least, make it very inhospitable and undesirable to visit, killing any real amount of traffic to the site.

5. It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload, equating to a ton of extra manpower and energy, and tremendously reduced/filtered/censored content. This completely violates the constitutional right of the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not limited to any particular topics, agendas, or subjects, and is guaranteed. Copyright protection, which is supposedly the issue here is an entirely different subject than piracy, and abiding by copyright laws do not violate one's freedom of speech.

6. It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner. This completely violates due process of an individual as guaranteed by our judicial process.

7. It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. This is an Orwellian concept we as a nation have long stood against, and have spoken out against these practices with extreme vigor. Doing this would also cripple the U.S. as a viable destination for new online business, as it would make the establishment of one very undesirable, similar to how the online environments of China, Malaysia and Iran are currently.

A few of the options that would work to combat piracy:

1. Release products such as movies simultaneously worldwide. It costs nothing more to do this, and completely undermines the reasons people put pirated copies up in the first place. This would greatly cut back on the onslaught of pirated cam/DVD rips that make the products available where they are not yet legally released. This cuts back on piracy caused by people's inability to wait for a product's release, such as a highly anticipated movie debut.

2. Do away with DRM restrictions. They don't work at all, and only frustrate legitimate paid customers, encouraging them to pirate themselves. This would allow customers the ability to back up their purchased items. They should also not have to buy back their entire library/collection if a device becomes inoperable or they switch to a different platform. This cuts back on hoarding pirated copies of items a consumer wishes not to lose, even if they bought the product legally.

3. Release quality beta/test issues for products such as video games, allowing full previews of the product and enticing people to buy the item instead of illegally procuring it to see whether it's worth spending $60 bucks for. This cuts back tremendously on the "exploratory" type of piracy.

4. Provide quality updates and additional material and support for legally purchased products. This already has a proven track record for sales as products like AVG anti-virus software packages have shown. This does away with the need to pirate in the first place, as most of the product typically needed for the casual user is available at zero cost anyway.

5. Stop crippling content so that it only works on one device, or only works if the reader is given permission by a retailer or publisher to open the file. This again cuts back on piracy for ease of use or the sake of convenience.

6. Release quality digital works for those products that don't have them, such as movies and books. This would prevent piracy of those products to create a product where a vacuum or sub-standard product exists.

None of those options require legislation. Money (2.5+ million so far) spent lobbying for this draconian legislation would be better spent implementing these options. We live in a digital world. It's time business practices adapted to reflect that. The argument has been made that the onus for this should not be on the owners of the copyrighted material to protect it, as the pirates are the ones in the wrong, but this isn't the case. Physical store owners/proprietors assume the costs for any protection of their store from vandalism and theft, such as locks, surveillance equipment, physical security, and electronic anti-theft measures. Virtual proprietors can and are already held to the same standards and have the same laws governing property and copyright protection as physical ones.

And this is on top of the fact that this draconian legislation won't even work. At least not as it's advertised.  Its effectiveness already has work-arounds. There is already a "DeSopa" download that circumvents what they're trying to do to catch those sites and make them inaccessible. There will always be a workaround.  This means that those sites will still be available, while legitimate sites like this one will be under constant threat, subject to censor, and/or shut down.

This should be obvious to anyone at least somewhat educated on the subject, and especially to lawmakers.  Which means either they're dumb as posts and truly believe it will work, or they are doing this only for increased Internet censorship ability and the silver coin lining their pockets from the Judas-like betrayal of the media conglomerates against the constitution.