.
With many great
ideas comes the inevitable train wreck of time management. I write, research,
edit, and strive to keep afloat financially. I posted in a previous blog that I
have a perspective job starting within the month, and that still remains –
latter than sooner, to my luck. Revolving everything around my family is the
trick – but flying this wreck by only me is the biggest challenge. In this
edition, I open a chapter more personal than informative… but first! Our flat,
deceptive fishy species: sole.
Sole falls into
the Soleidae family, a generally flat fish that can be seen in all sizes and
found in waters around the world. Halibut, being the most commonly caught type
of sole, acts as a staple for fishermen of commercial, recreational, or sporting
worlds. The title holder was reeled in by none other than Gunther Hansel (I
shit you not, that is his real name), weighing in at close to 500 lbs. This fish
yielded over 1,000 fillets.
Sole is a decadent substitute for haddock or
cod as the protein in fish n chips, however, it is common to see it baked,
broiled, or pan fried. I cooked alongside a man who wrapped sole around a
seafood breading, thus making stuff sole. It was rather tasty.
Lately, I have
been keeping my business of Y Drive 2 Work on the down-low for good a reason:
my writing is taking control of my time. I wasn’t the easiest teenager to deal
with from the perspective of others, but once I straightened my course, I took
to writing and reading as my one salvation. I attempted to keep my tools finely
sharpened as I traveled through life, boozing from place to the next. The dividends
of experience and three novels in progress is what I can truly claim as my
spoils of war with the demons inside of me.
Some would ask,
why continue to even bother with Y Drive 2 Work? Easy – it’s still a great
idea, and with all ideas of this caliber, it needs to roll-on at some speed. I
try to instill a part-time schedule with the efforts and pledge, accelerating
my stories to prioritize not only my time, but ways to make more capital for my
family.
What I am
struggling with most is tackling this behemoth by myself. With what I want to
be updated on, accomplishing, and publishing as fiction or non-fiction (data)
is hard. My biggest wish is to establish a social forum (be it social media or
blogging) that just works as the alpha theater: an elite setting so everyone
can come, read stories, find research, hopefully make some money, and have a
great time. What income I do have, is tied up. So hiring another set of fingers
and brains is out of the question. Instead, I realized that my writing is the
key. Horror stories at that… who would’ve thought.
I received an
e-mail from a good friend the other day explaining to me KDP (Kindle Direct
Publishing). I have teased a small audience on reddit.com, this blog page, and
social media, but I never thought of utilizing amazon.com as an avenue to
promote my horror stories. The traditional means was all that I remember from
when I was serious into writing (sad to say that was in high school). I am not
going to delve into the obviousness of KDP. As I mention in early posts, I am
catching-up because of my own choices. Regardless, KDP is fucking unbelievable.
My writing is
for a specific audience – those who love to feel physically sick, elated, or
unnerved by the written word. I tend to utilize vernaculars, macabre
descriptions, and intensity to really keep the reader on the edge of sanity. To
say that I dream of death, demons, and chaos on a nightly basis would be accurate.
I fall asleep to violent movies or vulgar cartoons. I find comedy in the
ironies of life’s ugly, imperfect design. Experiences – good or bad – are my
foundations for the eerie, hellish world that are my stories.
Needless to say,
that is a rather hard audience to find. In my experience, most horror fans that
I have met are also fans of solid comedy. So when publishing Call Now to
Receive Death as a Special Offer, I wanted to approach at an angle that would
result in a chuckle before a cringe. Here, check it out:
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Despite the top notch cover
artwork and brilliant title, you should consider reading this for the following
reasons:
1. We
all hate 1-800 numbers, and this is a great way to see some brutal, ghastly
justice of sleazy middle management.
2. I
have personally worked in six different call centers in various positions, so I
can say that am rather knowledgeable in most practices, setups, equipment,
policies, products, scripting, and layout.
3. I
live in Maine. I am a recovering alcoholic. I have cats, and will be writing a
pretty solid short story about cats/cat people. And I write macabre,
supernatural tales. Stephen King can say the same. Yes, I just did that.
4. I
know the President of Albania.
5. I
also hold claim to the Oxford County Pog Champion five years running. Now this
is a rather impressive feat to accomplish. The International Pog Commission literally
has to spend thousands of dollars to find these things, train someone to play
the game, and fly them in for a full-days worth of grueling competition.
6. This
is actually a pretty awesome short story.
Come on, it’s only one dollar. I
am really not going to argue it too much. It is quite good. And if that
obviously fictional bit of Pog glory didn’t sell you, then try this one-hundred
and sixty character tagline… sigh…
Matthew Cass, sales pro and loyal
night manager, finds his final shift to truly be his last. Read as vengeful
ghosts receive their refunds.
Now, once my twitter account is
lifted for attempting the selling of rare animals for the Chinese Black Market,
I will be able to spread that to my seventy-eight followers.
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I thought it was clever.
I originally
started with a price of 1.99$. I dropped it to a buck! I just love saying that.
“It’s only a buck!” So far, I have edited it twice: the tagline, and the price.
So every time I edit, I lose a few hours. Technically, it hasn’t even been up
for a day. So I have yet to generate any type of reviews from the paying masses.
I figure, thirty-five percent royalties is pretty fair, considering if
one-thousand people read it, this story will have reached an amazing goal for
two reasons: one, this is my first publication, and two, this is my first
paycheck from writing. I am ever the hopeful.
With honesty, I
can say that hope and creativity are two of my greatest assets that have arisen
from the ashes of my drunken self. All of my ideas are ever the foolish, yet I
feel driven to give them everything that I have.
A friend asked
me the other day “Why charge for your first publication?”
The world has
waited long enough to read my stories, and I am not going to give seven years
of unthinkable true accountings of my drunken, astonishing life for people to
just read at no charge. When you’re good at something, never give it away for
free. Especially when the devil pays you for your services.
http://www.cheftalk.com/t/59777/name-of-fish-most-commonly-used-in-real-english-fish-chips
http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/hobbies/largest_halibut_world_record_set_by_Gunther_Hansel_101989.html
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