Oh, nice job

So I told the kid this morning, "I'm going to tell you a story. It's a girly story, you're not going to care. In fact you won't remotely be interested. But I want you to nod and smile and at the end say, 'Oh, nice job.'"

He said, "Uh, okay."

I said, "I want you to practice. 'Oh, nice job.'"

He was silent.

"Say it," I prompted.

He barely managed to not roll his eyes at me. 

I said, "No, come on, practice. 'Oh, nice job.'"

He said, voice dry, "I'm practicing in my head."

I said, "'Oh, nice job? You're ready?"

He said, "Go."

I told my story. It was a long story. It was a boring story. It was not something  he would remotely care about. It required me to discuss clothing. At the end, I said brightly, "Okay, I'm done."

He said, "I forgot what I'm supposed to say."

"Dude!" I protested.

And then he paid me a nice compliment that both proved that he'd listened to my whole long tedious story but also that he'd paid attention yesterday when I told him a different story. It was a really sweet thing to say, delivered in his typical totally deadpan, matter-of-fact way, as if it wasn't really a compliment, just a statement of fact (when really, it was much more on the side of 'sweet and totally not true'.)

I was surprised and touched. So, of course, I said, "Oh, nice job."

He grinned at me, and said, "That, too."

Inappropriate

I got a message from fictionpress that I should have ignored, but couldn't.

This person Inappropriate sent me a private message that said -- and I quote --
"Hi
can i talk?
thats me in my profile picture"

to which I responded, "If that's you in your profile picture, does your mother know you're writing to strangers online? Because I want to call her up and tell her she's being negligent -- and you should know better! And no, we cannot talk. Get offline and behave like an appropriate eight-year old."

And I still feel angry. I have no idea who that is but I am quite sure, he/she/it is not the person in the picture and whoever he/she/it is, using a little kid's picture like that is disgusting. I feel slimed just by the interaction. And also furious. I wish I could call someone -- if not a mother, better yet the police. And just the fact that someone so sleazy would respond to something I wrote makes me want to throw things.

GeekGirl Con and the hobbyist writer

In August, I'm going to be giving a presentation at GeekGirlCon in Seattle, titled "From FanFiction to Self-Publishing: Ten Tips for Making the Move." I've been thinking about what I want to say quite a bit. The tip part is easy, although why I picked the random number ten is beyond me. It's not a very useful number -- I wish I'd gone with seven. Or maybe eleven? I know it was just the alliteration that got me, but I hate realizing that I've thought in cliches.

Part of what I want to talk about, though, is writing as a hobby. Everything I read about self-publishing is so crazed about the work, the need to be entrepreneurial, the pressure, the business side and how important it is to take seriously, but very few of them ever acknowledge that there's an implicit goal in all that advice that maybe not everyone has. Or needs to have. Sure, if you wish to be JA Konrath and earn $100,000 in a month, then maybe you need to spend the next ten years working 17-hour days. But you can have fun with self-publishing on a lot less time and a lot less effort. (Admittedly, those attitudes comes from the sites that I've found and follow, so possibly there are quieter people who feel exactly as I do.) And the idea that if you like to write, you must want it to be your full-time job is so limiting. I like to cook -- that doesn't mean I want to spend the rest of my days in a restaurant.

Amazon, CreateSpace, and the self-publishing revolution makes it possible for writing to become a hobby like...knitting. Crochet. You don't have to create "Art;" you can create something fun to share. My goal doesn't have to be to write a NYTimes best-seller -- it can be to share a story with friends. Publishing is now a spectrum activity. Yes, you can use it to work like crazy and try to make lots of money and build a "career," but you can also use it to play and have fun and experiment and take chances and enjoy a really entertaining hobby.

I made a book this weekend. I did it on Sunday. I sent the order for copies to CreateSpace this morning. I'm going to make five copies and only five copies. I'm not going to sell them, I'm just going to share them. It makes me happy to think about getting them and to think about the people I'm giving them to. And that is a totally valid and wonderful aspect of self-publishing that needs to be given more credit.

Tetrachromats

Ooh, so cool! They have found a real tetrachromat!! Yes, two exclamation points, I know, but I'm excited. Tetrachromats are -- for those who haven't memorized Akira's speech about quirks and super-tasters -- people with four types of cone cells in their eyes. Theoretically, they would be able to see a range of colors enormously far beyond what ordinary people can see, but they would probably never know they were different, because how would they find out? Apparently, though, they are no longer theoretical: Humans-with-super-human-vision

To a tetrachromat, the rest of us are color-blind. But there's no way for them to explain the colors that they can see, because we have no shared language to use. It's a completely useless super-power. But very, very cool.

Ghosts free today

A Gift of Ghosts is mentioned on Free Kindle Books and Tips today. It'll be free on Amazon through the 15th to celebrate the publication of A Gift of Thought.

Not too many copies have been downloaded so far, so I was really surprised to see it on a Free bestseller list already. Then I looked at the list and the Free titles stopped at about 73 or so. I guess only 73 authors are giving away books in the Contemporary Fantasy section. That sure makes it easy to make it on the list! It's like getting third place in a race with only three runners. But hey, it's still third place.

I comforted myself by looking at the Top-Rated list and it's #24 on the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Ghost Romance list and #33 on the Contemporary Fantasy list.

And it's up. . .

A Gift of Thought on Amazon

I suspect I'm going to be writing and rewriting that blurb. I had to firmly remind myself last night not to let perfection be the enemy of the good enough. It's not perfect, but then nothing ever is.

Wishing for a marketing department

Book's done, proofed, ready to go -- all I need to do now is write a blurb that works. It is unbelievably hard. I think I'm going to be tweaking this blurb for the next three months. Should it start with Dillon? The book does. Or Sylvie, the way my current blurb has? Including both of them in the blurb without  spoilers has so far been completely beyond me. As I yearn for a marketing department, I have to remind myself that back when I did work with a marketing department, I almost always preferred to write the sales copy myself. And in this case, I'm definitely best qualified to do the job. I'm tempted to send out emails to all the people who've already read it, though, and say, 'Um, what's the book about?' just to see what they say.

...And I think I just published it. Wow, Amazon has made it easy. No more Mobipocket creator, meta data, building a table of contents -- you upload the Word doc, they turn it into a book for you. Not that I've seen the book yet. It's still publishing. But by tomorrow morning, I bet it'll be up there.

We used to hit a big gong to celebrate sending a book to the printer. Everyone in the company stood up in their cubicles and cheered the triumphant team that had just achieved a little miracle. Somehow hitting Save just doesn't have the same oomph. I think I'll go set off some fireworks.