Success, the power to modivate you or at least to make you work faster

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Back in the 1980s I build a simple device to assist a portable radio setup. It didn’t work in the field. It didn’t work back home either, but I didn’t have time to check it out before the trip.

Fast forward 30 years. A use for the device came up so I dug it out. With the help of the internet I found the information needed to get the device working.

After rebuilding the device, it still wouldn’t work. I replaced many of the components in the device. That didn’t get it working either.

I spent a good part of yesterday working on the device. It’s not that complicated a circuit. At the end of the day it still did not work and I was depressed. Late in the night I had an idea and rebuilt the cord that connects the device to the radio. It’s a cord, simple wires. No batteries needed for a cord.

Early this morning I plugged the device in and it worked. Last night I cut the ends off the cable and installed new connectors. It could have been a bad connector, a bad solder joint, a bad piece of wire at the end of the cable. It doesn’t matter, the device works.

On the wings of success today flew by and I got a ton of stuff done. Unfortunately I didn’t get any writing done yesterday or today, but I got stuff done. It’s a horrific downer when simple things, that you built, don’t work, and a major high when you finally get them to work.

Having trouble writing? Then do something simple and get it done. Celebrate the completion. Then write.

Stray strong, write on.         Professor Hyram Voltage

Should I add a vampire to my story?

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To add a vampire or not add a vampire.

To sell more books or not to sell more books.

That is the question.

 

It’s easier, lazier to throw in a Vampire.

Do I surrender to a quick sell?

Do I hold out for my vision?

 

My beta reader says make him a vampire.

People buy books if there’s vampires in them.

Do I resist? Do I stay my path?

 

Vampires are supermen.

Vampires are demigods.

Vampires are a cop out.

 

You can not defeat a thing with a thousand year of experience.

You can not defeat a thing with his army of the unholy.

I tire of this battle.

 

To sell out or not to sell out.

To sell more books at any cost.

That is the question.

 

Stay strong, write on.       Professor Hyram Voltage

 

Friends of the Library and old books

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As I was taking my morning walk today, I swung by the city library. When I walked in they were putting out a new load of books from the ‘Friends of the Library’. People donate books to the Friends of the Library and the Friends sell the books at very modest price with the proceeds going to the library. These books range from someone cleaning out a closet to people with too many books wanting to make some space it their lives.

The book range from old best sellers (and sometimes not so old), to ancient children’s books, to books that were not as good as the buyer thought they would be. I once found a signed murder mystery book by a well known author in the pile.

This morning I picked up a couple of books on railroads. I’m not a railroad fanatic, but I write Steampunk and it’s important to get the details right. Also the books had pictures of how people dressed in the late 1800s. This is very valuable information. Steampunk readers can be very picky about the details.

One book also showed the sleeping arrangements for foreign trains. In the US, the Pullman car was the king of railways and is the most shown in the movies. One picture showed a British train with people sleeping in what I would call the overhead baggage bin if it was on a airplane. It also showed how one family had hung blankets down the side of the over head sleeping bin so the people sleeping on the wood benches below could have some privacy. Sleeping or hiding in an overhead bin on an old train is going into one of my novels.

Check out your local library, some of the information is not free but it can be cheap.

I always wondered why writers never talk about writing in libraries. It’s quite, the chairs are nice and the big library in the next city has an expresso bar that the library runs attached to the side of the library. The library is also cheap and the good ones are air-conditioned and heated.

Stay strong, write on.             Professor Hyram Voltage

Ellipsis, the space before, after, and in the middle of

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The other day I looked on the WEB to find out if there is a space between the end of a word and the first dot of an ellipsis, because my word processor said there should not be a space. Bad mistake. I found nothing but a conflicting mess of misinformation.

The basic idea is the three dots of an ellipsis stand for one or more missing words usually in a quote. OK, so if it stands for a word and there is a space between words then there should be a space between the end of the last word and the first dot of an ellipsis. If an ellipsis represents a word then there should also be a space between the last dot of the three and the next word. English language is not logical so you can find arguments for both a space and not a space.

There are arguments that there are, or are not, spaces between the three dots in an ellipsis.

Then I found on the Grammar Girl site the statement that the four dot ellipsis does not exist. She must not have a Ph. D. The MLA manual that is used for academic papers, like Ph. D. thesis, says that if you do not use one or more sentences in a quote then you show that by using a four dot ellipsis. The four dots of the ellipsis represents a one or more missing sentences.

My advice. Use the whole quote or no quote.

Stay strong, write on. Professor Hyram Voltage

Are Commas necessary?

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No not really.

Microsoft recently release a study of documents written on computers running Windows software. One of the big finding is that too many people use too many commas in their writing.

That doesn’t answer the question of where they got the documents and where they store those documents. They say there is no personally identifiable information that would tie the document back to the writer. What if the document is a personal letter with the writer’s name and address in the letter or even passwords and login information. Too many companies have been hacked lately, Microsoft could have a very incriminating letter you wrote in their data bank waiting to be hacked and that letter held for ransom or that letter put out to the world destroying your life.

Back to commas. The way the article was written I interpreted it too mean that the majority of people (that means over 50% of the writers) use too many commas.

The article also said that too many writers don’t use commas when they should. Again, (should a comma be after again? There’s a 50/50 change it shouldn’t be there.) I took this to mean that over 50% of the writers don’t know where to put commas.

The article did not say what set of rules they used to judge where commas should be placed. In America there is no set standard. I’m sorry grammar Nazis, there are no set rules and you’re just making them up and calling everyone else stupid for not using your set of rules. If Microsoft used the Chicago manual of style then you would have a comma after the item, in a serial string of items, that comes before the conjunction. If they used the APA style manual you do not put a comma before the conjunction. Comma usage varies a lot more than that in different style manuals.

Scribendi just had a email newsletter that demanded that you must have a comma after each item in a series including after the item before the conjunction. Then they mention the APA style handbook without telling you that the APA demands no comma before the conjunction. The APA is used by many magazines.

There was a court case where a woman (sister 1) sued her sisters. Her mother’s will said the estate should be divided between sister one, sister two and sister three. Sister one argued that she should get half of the estate since there was no comma between sister two and sister three. Besides sister one quit her job, paid her own money to help her mother in her last years, where the other two sister didn’t do diddly. The judge went with the way he was taught in school and they all got one third. I will let you decide if justice was done. Nothing is as simple as I wrote above and leave the writing of wills and contracts to specialist.

Go with the Harvard style of commas for items in a series and put a comma after the item before the junction.

Stay strong, write on, and don’t use so many commas.  Professor Hyram Voltage

 

Comma, The Revenge of the

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It’s amazing that Watson, the IBM computer, can diagnosis cancer, but it can not tell you where to place a comma in an English sentence.

Of course you can’t get two different English grammar teachers to agree where to put a comma (in all cases). Those teacher will give you an F if you don’t follow their personal rules (and you have to declare them gods of the English language).

Take the simple case of putting commas between two or more items in a row. There’s Harvard way where you put a comma after each item, including after the item just before the conjunction (usually an and). Then there is the other way where you don’t put a comma after the item before the conjunction, expounded by that other Ivy League college.

If you write articles for magazines you should be using the AP style guide and not put a comma before the conjunction, unless the editor or publisher went to Harvard.

If you write books then you should use the Chicago Manual of Style which requires you to put a comma after the item before the conjunction, unless the editor or publisher went to that other college.

One author was talking about finding editors and she required the editor to use the Chicago Manual of Style. She sent prospective editors a sample of her writing. In that sample she had two places where there were items in a row. If the editor did not put a comma after the item before the conjunction then she knew the editor did not know the Chicago Manual of Style. For the editors that put a comma before the conjunction in one place and not the other she knew that they were bad editors.

Revenge. Last month I attended the Condor science fiction convention. On one panel of science fiction book authors was a teacher of High School English. She had a YA book at a publisher. The book publisher removed all the commas form an action scene to make the scene read faster. She was indignant, she knew where comas belonged, she was a teacher. She left them out. She wanted the book published.

We need more publishers like that.

Stay strong, write on.                 Professor Hyram Voltage

Writing and grammar

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Warning Rant Below.

I had a talk with a budding young writer the other day. When I mentioned the  trouble I had with grammar she said let the editor take care of it.

This may be an attitude of the cell phone generation, but I strive to do quality work. I work hard to make the grammar better. As my old photography teacher stressed, Take the best picture you can. Don’t plan on fixing it in the darkroom, photoshop, or in production.

One good place to find information on grammar usage is The Purdue Online Writers Lab https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/. The Purdue OWL sites the American Psychological Association style guide and the Modern Language Association style guide. The APA style guide is for papers written for the Social Sciences and the MLA style guide is for papers written for Liberal Arts.

The information in the Purdue OWL is very good but the style guides they site are not for works that are intended to be read by the general public or to be sold. Buyer be ware.

Stay strong, write on.                      Professor Hyram Voltage.

 

San Diego comic fest

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This is not the San Diego comic con, this is better.

This is a convention of makers and doers of comics. It’s small enough that you can have a conversation with those that are making and have made comics without standing in line for hours.

This year the convention celebrated the 100 birthday of Jack Kerby. Lots of Kerby artwork on the walls. One artist created large statues of Kirby themed and Kink Kong themed works. Big enough to stand in and have towering over you while your picture is taken.

The comic fest was held at a new location. All activities were on the first floor. Very wheel chair friendly. For those of us staying in the hotel the parking was free. You don’t find that at many San Diego hotels. Artist alley was spread out with plenty of elbow room and room to expand. Not like the old hotel.

A shopping center was only a few blocks away and there were plenty of places to eat outside the hotel.

The rooms for the presentations and panels were a bit small and sometimes filled to overflowing.

And as hard as the staff tried it is almost impossible to get some of the panel members to stop talking.

I attended two talks on Mars rovers. Good talks.

I attended one talk on using Adobe software to build the frames or panel on a comic book page. Adobe software is too expensive for me, but you have to get all the techniques you can find.

Attended a panel on the upcoming solar eclipse. Get your special glasses to view the eclipse now.

Talked to several (OK I hound them, badgered them) artist on artist row for pointers on coloring and drawing. I also bought books and drawings for those I talked to.

The dealer’s room was full.

It rained getting there and while the convention was going on. But once there I stayed inside and the rain let up so I could go for breakfast and dinner without getting soaked.

Stay strong, write on.            Professor Hyram Voltage

Change can be real, go read a book

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The stock market taught me that when everyone say “this time it’s different,” it’s not. The dot com bubble proved the world is still filled with greedy people, and people can still be fooled by hype and marketing. As P. T. Barnum said “there’s one born every minute.” At today’s population explosion rate, there’s one born every second. I have many friends and co-workers that lost lots of money, a good part of their retirement, even their house in the dot com bubble. I’m not saying do not invest, I’m saying be careful when people say the world has changed. The greedy will not become saints at the wave of a wand. People are still out to make money any way they can.

Where am I going? The other day on the local NPR FM radio station was a news bite about Amazon setting up a new program to stress the selling of books printed on paper. Kind of nice, they’re getting back to their roots.

The next news bit was an interview with a guy from the Harvard Business Review. He had written a piece in the Review about how to read a printed (paper) book. The piece had a lot of the stock advice, turn off the TV and put away the remote, shut down the cell phone. Common sense stuff.

That noise I heard in the back ground was people, like Samuel Clemens, turning over in their graves. If you skipped high school English he’s better known as Mark Twain and wrote the book Tom Sawyer, or do high schools even teach that any more?

The guy doing the piece in the Harvard Business Review should have done a YouTube video about reading a printed book, or at least a power point slide show. If people don’t know how to read a printed book, will they know how to read a newspaper?

The world has changed if you have to tell people how to read a book.

Here’s a great chance for a writer to generate a 99 cents book, How to Read a PBook (printed book). Batteries and charger not needed.

Stay strong, write (and read) on.         Professor Hyram Voltage

How much does it cost to write an ebook?

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A lot more that you would think.

I recently ran across a blog titled; The True Cost of Self-Publishing a Book. Interesting article. If you peruse the infographic (the link to the infographic is buried in the text) you will find that authors that use the Reedsy service pay an average of $4800.00 for editing services (just the editing services). Then there’s the book cover, any formatting you want done, and the dreaded other things. It comes to a total (average) of $6,340.00 for professional services for a 60,000 word book.

Michael Doane who wrote the blog post (at https://blog.reedsy.com/cost-self-publishing-book) set his goal to have his book produced for $3,500.00. He did it, but $3.5K is a lot of money.

I’m trying to control cost (yes a moth would starve to dead in my wallet) and I’m looking at some serious editing at three cents a word for a 50,000 word for the book. That’s $1,500.00 for editing.

Book lay out people go on and on about how a poorly laid out book will turn off readers. I don’t get it. I have heard readers talk about how a book was hard to read, but they read it anyway.  Can you remember what the type font was in War and Piece?  Can you remember what the type font was in the last book you read? Do you care what the type font was? Do you know what a type font is?

When I formatted my first book I got out copies of five different books I liked. I liked the stories in the books not the format or grammar. All five books were laid out wildly different. They were all from major publishers so I got out a couple of indie books. No consistency there either. So I thumbed through the books picked out the things I liked and use them.

Things like; did the book have chapters and chapter titles. the font used, the margins used. The font I used is a default, I used Times New Roman. You can’t go wrong with Times New Roman. Margins were set to the same margins that were used in a paper back that I like and ended up being change to the Kindle default. Default font size was on the big side, it’s an ebook so paper cost is not a worry and as you get older you want large default font size (12 point or larger). My book looks like a book because it was make to look like a book. It didn’t cost $1200.00 to $2000.00 for a book designer. No ones has ever complained about the layout or that the book was hard to read. I would change it quickly if they did.

Note, I used a font with serf’s. Scientific tests show that fonts with serfs (serf means that the letters have little feet on the bottom, like the f and S in this post) are easier to read and are preferred for fiction.

I’m still looking for an editor that will do structural/developmental editing followed by proof reading after I incorporate the structural changes and copy editing after I incorporate the copy edit changes and I will pay the going rate.

Stay strong, write on.                    Professor Hyram Voltage