The price for the Kindle edition of “Poems de Terre” has dropped to $0.99! For less than a buck you can own an electronic copy of the poetry collection that has already received excellent reviews!

“Poems de Terre is a collection of short poems … that are delightful, and fresh, grabbing you from the first phrase.”
– J. French

“Poems de Terre is a sweet collection of poetry.”
– J. Godair

I never thought I’d agree with the observation that an author’s characters take on a life of their own. They’re just imaginary people, after all. Right? Well…

When I’m writing dialog, it feels like I’m taking dictation. That’s pretty convenient and (according to some) the dialog does scan well. But now I’m noticing that if I spend a lot of time with a character I start to act like that character, talk like that character, and even get annoyed at the same things that bother the character. Not to a huge degree; I’m still “me.” But clearly that part of my pea brain that generated the character emphasizes those attributes within me when I focus on that imaginary person.

I had learned techniques for emphasizing my own beneficial personality attributes as part of my philosophical studies. I think it would help me to clearly demarcate these ‘channeling’ episodes if I use those techniques from now on. One of those is to start a meditation with a meaningful gesture and a spoken phrase designed to reinforce the idea that a special time and place have been set up for inner work. Then at the end of meditation, reverse these steps. By establishing a clear start and a clean stop, this ensures that there’s no ‘bleed over’, but it also ensures that I dedicate that time and place exclusively to the work in front of me.

Over time, this should strengthen my writing, if only by virtue of a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion that reinforces my concentration.

As a newly self-published novelist, I’m learning that the work on a new novel will continue to overlap with the marketing of the already-written one. Writers who have opted to publish the ‘traditional’ route often find that they must also market their own books these days, so there’s really no shortcut. One of my Kindle books, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book, has a great deal of good advice on this work. Still, it’s not easy to step away from the creation of a book to do marketing. One way to do this is to rigorously divide the time allocated to writing. For example, if four hours are set aside for writing, spend two of those actually writing and two of them marketing and doing paperwork.

That said, I’m in the midst of knocking the roughest corners off the first draft of the next novel. At this stage of the work, it’s a little easier to step away from the manuscript! The todo list for the novel is still quite long, though, so I’m picking it back up tomorrow morning.

I’m proud to announce that “The Soul Thief” is available on Amazon in Kindle and print editions today. Tomorrow morning, the Kindle edition will be free to download; the delay is unfortunate, but I could not find a way around it.

You can find both of these listed here on the Kindle edition page on Amazon:

http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00LS7TBR2

As part of this launch I’ve also made “Poems de Terre” available for free on Kindle, and have also performed minor updates to the book, such as a better looking title page and a blurb about the novel.

A number of my early reviewers have asked when the next one will be out. This is very encouraging! And the good news is, I’m working on it right now. Of course, these things take time, but given my current pace, I expect to publish Book Two of the Gypsy Dreamwalker series, tentatively entitled “God of Battles,” in early spring of 2015. Keep an eye on this blog or on my Facebook page OR on Twitter for news!

I am pleased to announce that “The Soul Thief,” my novel of paranormal horror and suspense, will be available on Kindle on July 14th. It will be available in paperback a few days after that, depending on how quickly the distributor is able to process it.

As a celebration of the book launch, the Kindle edition will be FREE for a limited time. I will post an update the moment it appears on Amazon.

Once the free availability period has ended, the book will be published on other platforms, including the Apple iBookstore. Paperback and hardback editions will become generally available over time, and I will announce availability of these when they show up.

Also, I will post an announcement for the book signings in our local area. Keep an eye on this space!

Thanks, everyone, for your patience!

We just returned from an enjoyable evening listening to chamber music. The Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, in its fourth season this year, presents free public chamber music concerts at various venues in Trinity County. The music is always beautiful, and the performers are delightful.

Tonight’s performance featured three compositions by Brahms. Each was intricate and compelling, as well as thematically unique, but something that the leader of the festival said really caught my attention. He mentioned that one of the pieces, apparently Brahms’ favorite, was full of musical jokes.

Musical jokes?

Yes, music is a language, and one can tell jokes in that language. This got me thinking. I’ve always heard that a musical composition can tell a story, but I had always considered that to be metaphorical, insofar as my concept of a story includes features such as characters, plot lines, and so forth. Well, why can’t music tell a story too? What elements in a musical composition are analogous to characters, plot lines, or settings? Or are the elements of musical storytelling of a different nature altogether?

Thinking these thoughts turned me back to my own media, those of narrative prose and lyrical poetry. I know that some authors have experimented with using other elements of a story to convey its narrative, such as structural elements (word counts, rhyming, even the rhythm of paragraphs) and meta-narration (author’s notes that include an ongoing plot drawn from real life). I’ve even used something along these lines, in that the poems in “The Soul Thief” provide hints of Cassandra’s inner life and, ultimately, a powerful clue to assist Angela in healing her. But I think it would be very interesting to consider using word rhythm and phonology to convey story elements. The goal would be to trigger mood changes and increase subliminal tension, and if consciously chosen could provide endless ways to divert the reader.

More on this later?

I’m chugging away on the writer’s todo list, something that I enjoy, and one of the items that isn’t on that list, but probably should be, is this:

1. Study what my ancestors wrote. Study my family history.

My mother has told me about an illustrious line of storytellers whose blood runs in my veins. There’s the woman who started a newspaper and another who wrote a book of poetry in the 1890’s that is still available today. There are men who wrote, children who grew up writing, and all of this reminds me that being a writer isn’t something you necessarily choose. You get chosen by the art of writing.

The funny thing is, I have always loathed writing for its own sake. It wasn’t until recently that I learned why. If I can’t visualize an audience, I have no idea what to say. My brain is wired so that communication is a very personal thing. This is one reason why it took me a while to write a novel: I couldn’t think of a reason to do it. The breakthrough, interestingly enough, was when I learned to start with the dialog with the screenplay format. I can ‘hear’ the characters talking, and so I just transcribe that. I can see what they’re doing, and I can describe that in minimalist terms. What remains difficult is the narrative exposition portion of the novel. How can I describe a city scene if I don’t have someone right in front of me to describe it to? How can I tell someone about a flashback if I don’t know that they will find it interesting?

So what I want to do is read the writings of my ancestors. By doing this, I hope to become more connected with them. Then I can simply write to them, using them as my audience. I believe I will focus on the strong women, for whom my admiration is boundless. I can picture the woman who started the Sherman Democrat, sitting there on a chair in front of me. Of course, she will have been brought up to date on today’s mores and customs, as otherwise she would be scandalized. I will describe the settings for her, and see her nod in appreciation or shake her head in confusion (thus requiring more explanation). I will tell her what my characters are thinking, feeling, doing. Having such an imaginary audience would, I think, allow me to provide a point of view, one which I respect and one which, I hope, will prove to be intriguing and valuable for my real audience in the world today.

I’m studying memetics these days, and have found it to be a useful framework for understanding the way that culture and ideas shape our thought. One of the key notions in this framework is that memes are transmitted via all forms of communication. This includes indirect transmission; that is, the implication of a meme may transmitted without referring to its core tenets explicitly.

There’s something chilling about that idea. When I comment on someone’s Facebook post, for example, that person may very well become infected by my own meme ‘load’, whether or not I say anything that directly pertains to it. The reverse is true: I read a post by someone, and their hidden assumptions and biases are injected into my own meme receptors. Of course, memes resist change, so my meme immune response creates a critical barrier to incoming ideas, particularly those that challenge my inner status quo. There are ways around that response, though.

One way is through emotional appeals. My emotions respond nonverbally to my inputs. I feel a surge of indignation, or a clench of pity tightens my chest. The trigger, conditioned by the memeplex of its author, subverts my inner critic, who becomes convinced that this new information is important to me because of this powerful effect.

I have been receiving the storm of memes aroused by the news of the tragic mass murder of the women here in California the other day. My own responses to those thoughts, those feelings, are so kaleidoscopically intense that I can formulate no meaningful statement concerning them. At every turn I find myself confronted with a cultural introspective statement: feminist ideas, thoughts concerning mental illness, the ideological postures of so many of us. However, I can respond to the phenomenon of the memes responding to that event. I am convinced that the murderous intent of that young man has served to further polarize us along ideological lines.

Which brings me to the thesis of this post: Facebook is a steaming hothouse that breeds meme vectors at a dizzying rate. I have never seen such a stupendous blizzard of competing thoughts before, and when I consider that with the notion that FB is addictive, I conclude that it exerts a powerful memetic distortion field that only strengthens our meme load and makes it ever more resistant to change.

This is not good.

One potent antidote, for me, is to frame everything I read as a meme carrying bite of information. Objectifying the information that way helps me to maintain an immune response, even in the face of powerful emotional inducements. The tendency to become cynically introspective is powerful, of course, so I must counteract that with a strategem: emotional connections with my closest friends, both on and off the ‘Book. If I can maintain this odd balance, a dynamic balance that keeps my own train of thought lively, I may be able to keep my own perspective and offer something of value in response.

The last proofread (I believe) has been applied to “The Soul Thief.” I’m waiting on an initial galley proof to be certain of my font choices, as I designed the interior. I’m also waiting on my cover art. I’m going to plan a signing and book launch for both Hayfork and Weaverville. I think I’ll hold the former at Northern Delights, and I’ll contact Tammie’s for the latter.