internet

A quick tip

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People, think hard before you drop this link into a fat person’s email inbox.

FAQ Generation

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Reading through the thread at Suvudu about what an author’s website needs, I realized how badly I need to revise my site. One thing I need is a FAQ (apparently).

So! Do you have any questions you think I should address in a FAQ? Ask away, please!

Five things for a Friday

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1) Important indicator of an improving economy: The line at Starbucks is getting way long. I had to skip my refill this morning to get to day-job on time.

2) Remember that editorial note I mentioned before? The one that’s kicking my ass? I skipped breakfast today to get extra time to work on it, and I’m still losing. I’m doing something wrong, but what I don’t know.

3) Medical and dental insurance costs for my family and me for the year: $23,381.28. One year. Three people. Core plan. And that’s just the insurance–it doesn’t include what we’ll be paying for copays, deductibles and care that’s covered at less than a hundred percent. Outrageous? You bet it is. I hope Obamacare does something to bend the curve, but if it’s not enough, Congress should get back .

4) I’m collecting recipes for the Week of Pizza (aka, the week my wife is out of town). Cream cheese, sugar and fresh fruit? Check. Olive oil, capers, pepperoni, salad fixin’s? Check. Olives, pineapple and ham? Check. Bacon and eggs? Check. It’s going to be an odd week.

5) Currently, the Amazon.com sales ranking of Game of Cages is better than the ranking of Child of Fire by a factor of two. Yeah, I know the rankings “don’t mean anything” but I wonder if it’s time to switch my most prominent user icons from the CoF image to the new book:

Game of Cages

In which I am annoying

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You know that annoying thing writers do when they announce that they have something awesome in the works but can’t talk about it yet? A Soopah Sekrit Project? You know how they do that thing?

Well, I’m doing that thing. It’s totally exciting and I hope I don’t fuck it up.

In other news, what happened to memes? I used to see memes cruise through my friends list all the time, but I almost never see them now (and I’m hankering to do something simple in a post). Maybe I should create one.

This is just amazing

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My son found it and I have to share it with you. It’s a bit long (16 minutes) but there isn’t a boring moment. In fact, it’s a beautiful piece of animated storytelling, and the sound design is simply amazing.

How about that

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There’s no DVD release of CAST A DEADLY SPELL, the Lovecraftian private eye movie with Fred Ward and Julianne Moore, but it is on YouTube.

It’s better than I remember, but still disappointing in some of the choices.

5 Things Make A Friday Post

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1) I finished up chapter one of Key/Egg/Remark this morning. Actually, I was slightly late to day job because of it. But doesn’t it feel good to start a new project? Hell yes. I’ve been writing Ray Lilly stories for years (and I hope to write more of them–buy my book) but it’s such a relief to go into another voice, another setting, another tone.

2) And yeah, as the previous point demonstrates, I have a working title for the next project. The plan is for it to be lighter in tone, much less violent, much more conversational, and slightly closer to the urban fantasy mainstream (although tweaked in the ways I like to tweak things–most of the characters, and especially the villains, will be human beings). I hope the working title does what it’s supposed to do, which is keep the tone light and the story clever; it’s too easy for me to go dark.

3) A few weeks ago, someone pointed out that Kindle owners were putting one-star reviews on books that didn’t have a Kindle edition, or that were priced above ten bucks. The reviewers even said, in the review, that they hadn’t read the book and weren’t going to until the price and format were to their liking. I clicked the “report this” button and within a few days the review was gone.

Well, Amazon.com has stopped taking those reviews down. I guess it’s because they think those angry Kindlegarteners are doing something useful for them. They could, if they wanted to, limit reviews to people who have bought the book from them. They could, if they wanted to, post a request in the forums asking people to stop, and to use the link under “Tell the Publisher!” But they won’t.

Because they’re dicks.

4) Back to items one and two: Key/Egg/Remark is totally on spec right now. I haven’t even run the idea by my agent yet. In truth, I suspect it has some… let’s call them “non commericial elements”

Am I a fucking moron? You bet! But it’s what I want to do. And rather than talk about the idea with my agent, I’d like to try to win her over with the story.

God, I’m an idiot. I should just write a steampunk YA about a teenage inventor and track star who teams up with his roboticized girlfriend to steal a military dirigible and raids an arctic lab to recover her human body. And the villain would have an implanted monocle-like eye piece and a hyper-intelligent talking cat who switches sides at the last minute.

5) I forgot to mail my taxes today. Duh. I’ll do it tomorrow.

Five things make a post

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1) Apparently, Twitter prestige is based on the ratio of followers to following. I’m not prestigious. #statingtheobvious

2) That’s the first hash tag I’ve used. I can never seem to remember to include them in a post tweet. I also realized that my Twitter bio was too wordy. This site might actually be good for me.

3) I wish it was more obvious when people retweeted things I write. Or maybe it is and I just don’t know where to look.

4) And because I don’t want to talk about Twitter all the time: additional good news about the health care reform bill is that it carries an amendment that will cut billions of dollars in waste from government student loan programs. ::crossing fingers::

5) Back to Twitter (@byharryconnolly, btw). Maybe it won’t be all that good for me after all. It very much encourages the “Any new messages?” impulse that caused email to take over my life. It’s nice that the browser tab shows the count of new tweets without clicking on it, but I may have to exercise *gasp* self control.

From the Department of Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time…

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I installed, then uninstalled WordPress Stats. It seemed like a simple Google Analytics replacement (and I was fascinated… fascinated to discover that someone found my blog by searching for “golden girls” homosexuals’) but the negatives were too great.

What were they? Well, I couldn’t post to my blog. As soon as I deleted the plugin, the problem went away. So now I have to choose a different Google Analytic plugin so I can continue to ponder why the Lego diorama post and #Agentlove are still getting so much attention.

Completing the circuit

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FB users, this is an embed. Click through to watch it.