After a Particularly Rough Morning, This Made My Day.

Bad Photography (We All Make Mistakes).

Sure, it's cool to show off all of our good writing, and our good artwork. But, let's face it - it's not 100% realistic. Because we all take terrible pictures. And we all write terrible first drafts. And, pretty much everything we do on the first try is terrible. So, let's at least have some fun. (But, for the sake of "having fun", I'm going to title them like I think they're freaking works of art, because fun.)

Breathtaking Photo of a Monkey Hanging Out in a Tree

Amazing, One-of-a-Kind Photo of Nature's Most Beautiful and Dangerous Wonders - The Almighty Flame

A Majestic Sunset Over Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

A Breathtaking View of Colorado Springs, CO

Beautiful Photograph of a Coloradan Forest in the Summertime

A Roadside View of Some Lovely Green Trees

A Reminder that All Life is Fragile - Stunning Photograph of a Dying Tree

So We've Found Our Problem. We've Justified that the Problem Needs to Be Fixed. Now What?

Today, I had somebody ask me if a reason was a solution.

"Young girls should have better access to birth control [specifically Plan B] because it is safe."

IS THIS A SOLUTION?

First off, I'm going to start off simple here, by going to Dictionary.com and searching the word "Solution."

Solution: the act of solving a problem, question, etc.: The situation is approaching solution.

How does telling you that something is safe solve anything?

Yes, I did say, "Girls should have better access to birth control," but I didn't propose a solution to the problem.

Nowhere in that statement did I say, "Consider writing to your representatives about the issue" or "Consider starting a petition about eliminating restrictions for girls to acquire Plan B."

Because those are solutions. Or at least, that's as close as we can get to solutions.

Another Guest Post

Lately, I have this habit of not writing anything on my own blog, but writing halfway decent posts for other people to put on their blogs.

What's up with that?

Anyways, today I am featured on Cassandera Carr's Blog. Check it out: http://booksbycassandracarr.com/wordpress/?p=1351

I've Been Getting Lazy on the Blogging; Either Way, Here's Some More Photos.

To all those who may or may not care, I apologize for my recent lack of blogging. Seriously, I have no idea what's gotten into me.

Of course, in a few days, March Sales Reports will be released - that should be a semi-exciting blog post (ha ha, not really).

If you do pay attention, you may have noticed that I posted an entire album of pictures. Unfortunately, I wasn't explicitly clear in why those pictures were posted. Actually, the reason for the album being posted is pretty lame - I made the album for the sake of my "Reddit Cakeday". Somehow, I thought that (mostly) beautiful pictures of Wyoming would get me approval from an extremely condescending community.

Results: I did manage to get a little approval, but the approval from my real internet friends was better.

Anyways, I was hoping to post a few more pictures here, just a few like normal, and maybe some photos that did not make the yesterday's cut (for whatever reason, likely out of forgetfulness).

This didn't qualify for the "Wyoming Pictures" Album, because it wasn't taken in Wyoming.

Is this actually a good photo? I'm not sure. But, the colors look cool. And this one would have qualified for the Wyoming album.

This also would have qualified for yesterday's album.

A lot, a lot of bikes.

Love this one - not sure why.

Various Pictures from Wyoming Since August 2010

When Have You "Made It?"

I believe that, even if I make a million dollars off my writing, I still won't think that I'll have "made it".

At first, I thought, "When I'm published, then I will have made it."

Well, self publishing was a little easier than taking the traditional route of finding a publisher, so when I did self-publish, I told myself, "Nah, I can't count that. That was too easy. Maybe when I make some money, then I can say I've made it."

But how much money does one have to make before they make "it"? I made $120 so far, others have made far more. But I made money, didn't I?

Nobody knows my name - at least, the general population doesn't know my name. Do I have to become semi-famous before I "make it"?

Does somebody have to recognize me in the store?

(Good luck with that one - nobody knows what I look like!)

Does somebody from Hollywood have to offer me some kind of movie deal?

Where does it all end?

A Working Playlist for "The Night Life", and Predicted Hindsight's 100th Post

Although I've actually gotten a fair chunk of writing done this weekend, I've found that I've been feeling pretty uninspired when it comes to writing on my blog recently. This is somewhat surprising, actually, because I actually have one or two ideas for things to write about.

That said, I've been more or less working on a playlist for The Night Life. Perhaps it's a bit premature to be making play lists, especially since the novel isn't even completed yet, but nevertheless, I tend to make play lists for my writing on-the-go.

I actually picked a nice selection of songs at first, though I've culled some of them, seeing as I'm trying to create a mix of 80's rock (the music of choice of one of the main characters) and folk (the music of choice for the other main character). Of course, considering some of the story takes place in a strip club, there's a small requirement for there to be some dance-worthy music as well.

A Few More Lines from the Upcoming Novel, The Night Life.

I'm somewhat of a hopeless romantic, so naturally, every one of my stories is likely to contain a love story in some form or another.

In this case, however, the love story is more or less of a side story, and is not the main focus of The Night Life. This is probably the first piece I've written in years that does not focus mainly on the romantic prospects of the characters.

Of course, depending on how you spin it, that last sentence may be entirely false. It really depends on how you view the main character, Richard.


These next few lines, however, are actually about Tanya, the nosy and intrusive dancer who gets a little too involved in Richard's life. The love story in The Night Life belongs to her, and takes place between her and her high school sweetheart, Mickey Rodgers. They ended their relationship about a month after Mickey went to college in Colorado while she stayed behind in New Mexico, and now they find themselves reunited. Tanya quickly finds herself rediscovering her old feelings for her high school sweetheart; however, does Mickey share those feelings with her?

Would I ever see him again? It was likely, sure; we did only live an hour away from each other. Would I see him often? That, unfortunately was not likely. Meanwhile, I would be stuck here in Socorro dancing for a living, all while craving that elusive scent that clung to Mickey’s skin. Though I didn’t know it until now, I had spent the past six years in silent agony because I missed him. I must have spent at least four of those years telling myself I had forgotten him; only now did I realize that I loved him as much as I did when we were eighteen, and I couldn’t help but hope he felt the same way.

Let's Talk About Paper.li

This morning, when I was busying myself with all of my various websites, I logged into Twitter and saw this under my "interactions" tab.

I've gotten these paper.li things before - this one is probably the 3rd or 4th one. And, up until today, I never really questioned them, though I did find it strange that so many people seemed to have their own daily newspaper (because really, who is going to read an entire newspaper run online by a nobody?). I've always just gone to the site, looked for what they used off my blog, and closed out of it. Nothing more.

I did the same exact thing with this paper.li notification that I've done with every other one - I went to the website and searched for what they used from me (usually entries off of this blog). In this case, this person had posted a link I randomly decided to post on Twitter yesterday, which was this old preview of Family History: Part 1.

In the past, most of these Paper.li papers were related to things like writing and self publishing, so I never questioned it.

This one, however, seemed geared towards genealogy.

Let's face it - even though Family History: Part 1 and Part 2 contain something of an extensive genealogy, the book itself is just a work of fiction. And when most of the articles on this particular "paper" seem more related to, say, actual genealogy (and not fictional families), then I started to wonder.

I took a look on Twitter, too - this guy and I were never following each other, nor did we have any similar followers. Suspicious!


So, naturally, I did what any "modern-day sleuth" would do, and I consulted Google. A quick search of just "paper.li" led me to this blog post - "Paper.li: Clever Curation or Spammy Automation" by Adam Toporek.

"The first time I was mentioned in a Paper.Li I didn’t understand what had happened. It showed up in my Mentions stream on Twitter that I and a few others had made “The ____ Daily” and were part of the “Top Stories.” I thought the person who had mentioned me had read something of mine and liked it enough to tweet about it. I promptly thanked him for the tweet, but little did I understand that the gentleman in question most likely had no idea who I was or what I had written."

So, you mean to tell me that I'm not actually special?

"I had been picked up by the automated service Paper.Li." 

Automated, you say? Well then, I guess that answers my first question.

"For those who are not familiar with Paper.Li, it is a content “curation” system that publishes multiple Twitter and Facebook feeds and makes a newspaper of sorts."

To be honest, I'm not quite sure I understand the point, taking stuff written by others and posting it all in a newspaper collage of some sorts, but to each his own, am I right? 

Posting to your Paper.Li whatever happens to be in the #smalllbusiness hashtag stream when the Paper.Li runs is not curation, it’s topical aggregation.

Oh, kind of like how this guy posted my months-old "Family History" preview post to his genealogy paper?

If you want to know more about Paper.li, I recommend not only reading the rest of Toporek's blog post, but also taking a look at the comments: where this particular writer is saying, "No, Paper.li has no value," others disagree and add in their two cents as to why.

Does anybody here have anything to say about Paper.li? If so, feel free to comment on this below - I want to know what other's experience has been with this particular website.

Will There Ever be an Appropriate Time for Me to Serenade Somebody With This Song?

According to my tags, I might have already posted this here before. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful song with a lovely saxophone solo.

The Worst Thing Somebody Ever Said to Me [About My Writing]

I don't really know why I'm posting this, but I've been working on searching for this message in a hoard of personal messages on a certain forum just so that I can post this, and talk about it.

Why do negative reviews get us down? I see it all the time on writing forums - people post about their "first one-star reviews". Sometimes, the writers are distraught and want to respond (even though it's in bad taste, apparently). Other times, the writers agree with the reviewer to a point. Sometimes, the reviews are just dead wrong (like complaining that they expected the book to be romance when it was erotica, when it was clearly marked 'erotica'). The point is, though, that no writer ever just shrugs off a negative review, especially when it's one of their first.

This particular "worst thing", however, was not a review of anything I have published, nor was it even something recent. This one is actually painfully general - it's not an insult against a particular piece of work, it's a slam against everything I had written up to that point.

Granted, based on who said it, it was probably said just to hurt me. So, should this little sentence even count as a slam against my writing, or a tool used to control and manipulate my emotions?

This was said to me nearly six years ago - about one year before I began work on The Dowry - in a personal message. The conversation leading up to it went something like, "We can't be honest with each other." "Oh yeah? Prove it!" The resulting reply?

"Yawn, you write pretty sucky, the only reason guys say you're a good writer is because you're given them an entrance."


Six years later, I still don't even know what that last part means. Maybe it's a variation of calling me a slut? I don't know. It's not like I was overly flirtatious at this point in my life.


But why am I posting this? I know that my "reach" is so painfully small that most of what I write hardly matters. Though I do feel that criticism, good and bad (and especially that bad) can easily get us down.


And to insult basically everything we've ever written? Ouch.


But, you're not going to wow everybody, no matter who you are. Think about something like Harry Potter - as wildly popular as the series is, not every person is a fan. They're few and far between - that, or they're hiding amongst the hardcore fans - but they're out there. 


Don't let one negative review get you down. You won't win everybody over. It's impossible.


Don't give up.