Clearing the Kindle: 2 – Short Stories as Intros

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Book read: Halcyon Days by J.A. Cipriano
Pages: 14

Back when I started collecting kindle books I gathered a number from newer authors who I hadn’t heard of. I would hear about them from a daily deal, or a friend on Goodreads, and add them to my collection. Often because they were short reads that had been marked free to encourage you to get the second in the series.

Halcyon Days seems to be a free give away to introduce others to a series. I say seems to be because it is no longer available on Amazon. However, Mr Cipriano has a large list of books to his name since then, but this appears to be an abandoned series.

Considering many people think prologues are a forgotten relique, the idea of a short story prequel to a series has appeal. It could introduce people to the world, allow others to find the series, or give those who want more information about the world something more to sink their teeth into. Having it set up for 99 cents with the occasional free give away also gives readers a chance to try your writing.

Free books don’t have the same punch that they used to. Amazon changed a lot of algorithms, as did every other book sight, which changed how writers engaged with readers. That doesn’t mean the free give away is completely useless, just that it isn’t lightning in a bottle like it used to be.

One big problem with free giveaways happens to be the reader like me, the one that collects a bunch of new stories and doesn’t read them nearly as fast as they collect them. Still, with the hope that some of those who pick up the free copy will actually read it, enjoy it, and come back for more…we authors give away a lot of copies. It’s like sending a message in a bottle out to sea. So many of them get sent out, but only a few ever find another soul to connect with. But that small glimmer of hope, that dream, it’s the reason why so many bottles get sent out there with notes to begin with.

As for Halcyon Days, it was a solid contender to make someone interested in a series. A boy is rescued from the monster under his bed and taken to a world of magic. He is then introduced to a magical society that hunts the evils that go bump in the night, like vampires, hopping from one world to another in order to do so.

The idea left a lot of room for growth. Do you follow the lone earthling? Pick one of the alien hunters? Do you take the earthling to a new world? Such an open ended story could give a writer issues unless they had a specific destination in mind. That could be why this was abandoned, or it could be as simple as another series taking off and wanting to limit which series he put his efforts into.

We shall never know what became of Halcyon Days, but I might pick up his book “Alone in the Dark” just because it seems…interesting.

Clearing the Kindle: 1 – What About Episodes?

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Book read: The Miscellaneous Adventures of Princess Leona by V.C. Coll.
Pages: 13

This short story has been on my kindle for over five years now. I picked it up when it first came out because I had been on a podcast with Miss Coll, and I wanted to support her work. I never got around to reading it, and I’m not sure why. I don’t really have an excuse, it’s only 13 pages, and took me less than thirty minutes to read.

The Miscellaneous Adventures of Princess Leona is a Grimms style fairy tale about a princess of extraordinarily ordinary origins trying to become a witches apprentice. It has a lot of forth wall breaking by the author, and a narrative style that I found charming.

This was written back in 2013 during a time when “episodic” story telling was all the rage. Miss Coll, along with myself, followed the Self Publishing Podcast which was a group of three guys that talked a lot about the episodic story telling model, so it isn’t unusual that many of us tried this tactic.

An episodic tale is one in which there are multiple shorter stories that are published separately, and together they create and entire season for that world. The SPP guys were influenced by film. Think Breaking Bad, Star Trek, or Friends. Each individual episode had a complete story involved, but they all progressed character development, and the over arching plot of the main series.

Many novel series does the same thing. Xanth, DragonLance, Vampire Diaries, Jack Reacher, etc. Each book in the series has a distinct story of its own, but it contributes to the overall progression of the series as well.

The main difference between a traditional book, and the episodic tellings of the SPP theory, is that the stories were shorter. A traditional book was about four times longer than the SPP episodes. They also sold them for $2.99, then bundled the full season for $5.99 when they completed the season.

For them, and many others, it worked. But there was one flaw that happened with many stories. That is the sudden cliffhanger, or the incomplete story.

Princess Leona’s story falls into this latter category. While charming, I did not feel like it had a satisfying ending. There was some progress toward the end goal, but the narrator kept insisting the end did not exist, there was no edge of the forest. And while there were a couple of encounters with dubious fellows, it felt more like building a team than overcoming an obstacle.

This is the trouble of episodic storytelling. You can, and probably should, have a cliffhanger ending, but you need to have a satisfying ending as well. When completing a book something should have been accomplished, even if it isn’t the final ending. Without that satisfaction of a job well done…well I feel like I’ve just wasted my time.

The other tangle in this weave is that there are only two stories out by Miss Coll, and because the second is just as short as the first I don’t feel an inclination to buy and read the second one. After all this time I doubt she will add a third, and I do not know if the second story will have a satisfactory ending to it. If it were to be another cliffhanger with no further reading then it would be even more disheartening.

In conclusion…Episodic storytelling may not be as fashionable as it once was, but it is still a viable story telling device. However, each story in the series needs to feel like a complete tale that is worth the readers time in reading, with just enough of a hint of the next book to keep them going forward. Otherwise you risk alienating your reader.

And that is what I’ve learned from the first book. Stay tuned for the next: Halcyon Days by J.A. Cipriano.

Clearing the Kindle : Intro

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I, like most kindle owners, have accumulated a vast collection of ebooks. Most of which I’ve never read. They are books ranging in those I picked up because they were free, because the cover looked interesting, or even because I just wanted to support an author I found interesting on a podcast or youtube channel.

This massive collection of ebooks needs to be paired down. I thought I’d start with the shortest books, and move forward.

Now, I couldn’t just read books and take nothing from it. Goodreads gives a little insight into my reading habits, sharing most of my audio book and reading history. But I’m not only reading for fun (sure, most of it is for fun, but not ALL of it). I also like learning from my book choices because I am a writer as well. The best way to improve writing is to read books, and actively see what works, and what didn’t work for you. So I’m going to start with the shortest book in my kindle TBR, and move my way up. And along the way I’m going to share what I’ve learned from it.

A couple of things to note about kindle readers in general. I have a Paperwhite and a Fire. I prefer the Paperwhite to read, the e-ink is easy on the eyes, and good even in a dark room. The Fire is just too bright for me, and needs to be charged a lot more. It also has a lot of distractions since it is a tablet, even if it is a slower model.

I also have a kindle app on my phone which I often use when I am out of the house. Still, it’s a small screen, and also bright like the Fire, and it has the distractions of games and technology as well.

All kindles allow you to collect your books into collections so that you can easily find specific categories. They also allow you to sort by read, not-read, and downloaded. What it does not allow is the sharing of collections between devices, which I just found out today after putting a large part of my books into collections via the online website. That means you have to go through the process of adding books to a collection directly on the Paperwhite, and then again for the Fire, and again for the phone. When you are doing this as you add books that isn’t as bad, but when you have a huge collection and you just want to sort books…well…tough luck, I guess.

Also the kindle doesn’t allow you to sort by page count. This is partly because page counts on kindle aren’t always accurate, but I suspect they do not want to encourage you to read by page count, or deem it as unnecessary. There is a reason a lot of readers prefer to sort their books on Calibre. The features of the kindle haven’t changed in quite some time, and it shows.

In order to get book lengths I used Goodreads. Goodreads allows you to add your books directly from your amazon purchases. Then you can add them to a to-read list and sort them by length. I found that of the 900 books on my to-read list only a dozen of them didn’t have page lengths. The rest were comparable to the amazon page length count.

Goodreads did not import all of my books, and I know I’ve added random books from series I liked that I do not own, so this isn’t a perfect match, but it is helpful. Once I had this list I was able to go into my kindle and download the specific books that I was looking for.

Beyond the lack of collections across platforms, and sorting by length, the kindle is a useful tool. Having my books available on the go, on my phone, and on most devices, is incredibly useful. And using Goodreads, or Calibre, to augment the kindle helps to sort and find exactly what you’re looking for. So… on with the reading!

First up: The Miscellaneous Adventures of Princess Leona by V.C. Coll.

3000 Years of Longing Review

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A tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Boy looses girl. Boy gets sealed into a brass jar for two thousand years. Okay, maybe not the usual story, but definitely an interesting one.

In 3000 Years of Longing a literary analyst finds an old glass bottle. The cap falls off while she (Alithea, played by Tilda Swinton) is cleaning it and out pops a Djinn (Idris Elba). But she has heard all the tales of djinn, and the mishaps that fall those who make wishes. She isn’t about to fall into the trap.

So the djinn tells her stories of his life. How he first became trapped in a brass vase, how his love betrayed him, and the subsequent years that he spent trapped…alone.

The Djinn longs for his freedom, but he can only be freed if someone makes three wishes. Unfortunately, they have to be wishes of great desire since it was his desire that cursed him to the bottle. But the hearts desire is a tricky thing. We crave things without fully understanding the consequences of acquiring them. And so each wish he grants sends him farther from his goal.

The visuals for 3000 Years of Longing are simple, but beautifully done. Simple sets with meaningful items, CGI only when it is impactful, and effective prosthetics to give the djinn an otherworldly feel.

While this story is told from the perspective of Alithea it is not about her. A mousy, librarian type woman who does not share much of her own life, she focuses her narrative on the djinn, and his story.

If I had any criticism of 3000 Years of Longing it is the character of Alithea. Her standoffish and aloof nature does not lead me to love her, or hate her. I feel… nothing…for her. Meanwhile I see all the desire, and need, for the djinn, and share in her love for him. But this lack of care for Alithea means the ending is a little odd. Why would a djinn that has love queens, beauties, geniuses, and spun magic through the vary fabric of the world… fall in love with a mousy librarian. Not to say this can’t happen, just that they did not show what qualities about her drew him to her other than a wish. And if it is just the wish… well… If you switched it to a man wishing for a woman to love him how would that look?

I am choosing to believe they just did a bad job of showing why he was attracted to her, or maybe since she is the one telling the story she didn’t understand it either, and that is why she does not have that part. Her stories are about others around her, not herself. Everything she craves moves around stories from old musty books.

There are a few other things that make the world building a little off. Why does Alithea see other creatures? No one explains that other than her brief encounter with an imaginary friend. Still, maybe it’s also why she prefers to live in books instead of with people.

In the end I feel a kinship with Alithea only because I prefer books to people most of the time, too. And the wonder of reading fables, and finding the spark of magic residing within them still exists.

Like “Big Fish” and other fantasy in the real world stories, 3000 Years of Longing adds that spark to the mundane. Worth the watch.

Review : Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

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I had been hearing about Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for a while. Hailed as Dr strange done right, or a better multi-verse movie I was intrigued. In many ways I have to agree with that assessment. This movie is a spectacle with amazing cinematography, special effects, and an intriguing world building.

But, ultimately, this is the story of one small family trying to find a connection to each other within a chaotic world.

The story is set in a fantastical sci-fi world of split realities, kung fu fighting, and jumping from one point to another. The ending also has an Inception feel where you are wondering what was real, and what wasn’t. But in the end, does it really matter?

The actual story of a mother trying to understand her teenage daughter, and a young adult woman trying to find her place in the world is only enhanced by the splitting of realities. In essence it says that no matter what world you are in, what choices you make, inevitably we will find ourselves at this point. Trying to connect.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a masterfully crafter story. Give yourself a treat and watch it.

A year later…

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A year since I moved to North Carolina. A year of changes. A year of letting go of old things and enjoying the new.

First… I didn’t write as much as I wanted to. I could blame it on my job, or writers block, or any number of things. And the job does take up a lot of my time, but it doesn’t take up all of it. I could write more. It wouldn’t be the same as when I had that year off, but if you never write then you never publish again.

But… I think I needed some time to heal. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. A lot happened over the last few years and I just needed to work through it all. Sort out the pieces, figure out how I felt about it all, and move on. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to do that, to set everything aside…. And just be for a while.

I did create. First art, then games, then little stuffed monsters. Each of them came with learning experiences, and new challenges that I loved. And I will keep creating all of them just for the fun of it.

Creativity is a huge part of who I am. Creating worlds, and characters, and giving them life… I have to do it. I’ve been doing it since I was little and it isn’t going to stop because the world goes sideways. But… Maybe it’s okay for those worlds to appear in a different way. A game instead of a book. A stuffed animal instead of a witch at sea. Describing something with markers and paint instead of words.

I still love the books I’ve written, and I want to finish the ones I have already started. The pain of the last few years has faded… Now it is more about discipline, and fortitude. It takes months for me to write a novel, but it takes a lot to actually get that done. The words don’t magicaly appear in the computer, you have to take time, and effort, to put them in. Without the willpower to stick with something and get the job done…. The novel never becomes reality.

So that is what I’m working on. Call it a new years resolution maybe, to write every day. Even if it is only 200 words. Because the habit is gone and I need to rebuild it. But I’ve been here before, I’ve made this journey. I can do this!

End of Year Review 2021

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For the last five years I’ve done an end of year review were I look at what I accomplished in the year before, and where I will be going in the coming year. Generally this has to do with my writing, how much I wrote, what I published, and what I have already started for next year.

This year things are a little different.

I wrote a total of 50,000 words last year. That is for the entire year, something I usually do in November for NaNoWriMo all by itself.

For comparison: in 2019 I wrote 230k words and published three novels. In 2020 I wrote 141k words and published one novel and a short story (while also dealing with being sick for part of that year.)

So what happened in 2021? The pandemic was in 2020, my tumor was in 2020, you would have thought that would have been the year to drag me down, and yet it wasn’t. Or rather… It wasn’t right away.

Stress has a way of building up and weighing you down. Sometimes you won’t notice the effects right away, but when it does start to effect you everything starts to go downhill fast.

For me this started at the beginning of 2021. I was feeling better after surgery and it was time to get a “real” job. After all, we needed money to move back to Seattle, and since my then BF was still obligated to work for the person we were staying with for room and board (and nothing else) I decided I would go back to work and earn some extra money for truck rentals and gas. Our savings has already been depleted and I wanted to help.

I think getting that job was the best thing for me, physically, because it helped my recovery after surgery progress faster. It was a very physically demanding job and I had to get strong or fall behind.

But as a consequence I was tired… A lot. My body had just been through a major ordeal. I lost 50 lbs, and had been on a starvation diet for a few months because the tumor didn’t leave room for food, so my body had a lot to recover from.

For the first few months of 2020 I still managed to fit a little writing in between work and falling asleep. When I couldn’t consentrate on words anymore I started drawing… A LOT.

Then in April we moved back to Seattle to stay with my ex’s parents. They are lovely people, and I still care about them, but my life was changing. Again. The stresses were building up and it seemed there was no real solution.

The stress was so bad that writing became difficult. More difficult than it had been in a very long time. I will even admit part of it was a sense of failure on my part. I tried to make it as a writer. I wrote, marketed, and advertised. I did what I knew how to do, and it wasn’t enough. I didn’t find that key piece that I needed to make it work. To make a living as a writer.

That sense of personal failure and the constant reminders around the Seattle area that we were in a pandemic and you should “be afraid” all the time were getting to me.

For the rest of 2021 I didn’t write a lot, but I did draw quite a bit. I published three books in 2021, all of which were art related. I felt comfort in art when I could not find any in the written word.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09L32839B/

Then November happened. My boyfriend broke up with me, and I had to move to North Carolina because I had no where else to go. That’s where I still am.

On the bright side… The weight that had been settling over me for the last year started to lift. In December, in amongst all the issues I was having, and the sadness of loosing something so important to me, I wrote 8K words, and 13k in January of 2022. The block that had been plaguing me for a while has become something of an annoyance instead of a permanent fixture.

I also recorded my trip across the USA, and posted it on youtube, rumble, and bitchute. Some of it is a sad look back at what was, but there is also a fair bit of optimism for the future.

I still have a ways to go. I have three novels that I want to finish this year, and all of them are in various stages of completeness. I also have a few more art pieces I want to do, and possibly another coloring book to complete.

The three books are Vertigo and Steel Code from my LitRPG series, and a third book in the Half Blood Sorceress series. All three have about 50k words already written so I think I can finish them this year, it’s just going to take some perseverance. Something that I am relearning.

The sudden shift in my life may have hurt, but it was probably for the best. Even if I can’t see it all the time. I sent so many years living for others, and supporting their dreams, that I set my own aside. Time to work on mine.

Moving forward

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Relationships are tough in regular times but they are even harder when the world around you seems intent on throwing everything out can at you.

To anyone who thinks love triumphs over all, sorry… It doesn’t. Sometimes love faces, sometimes things change, sometimes you change. And during all of that you have to work really hard to keep that relationship working. If one of you doesn’t want to… Well…

The good news is you can work on a relationship. Spending time together, doing things outside the home, especially active things (that means watching TV and movies isn’t nearly as good as playing a board game, or going on a hike together.)

But you have to be willing to do those things. Sometimes one of you might not feel like it. Maybe they lost their job and doing anything is just tough right now because they are down. Maybe their health isn’t great so they are scared it nervous and doing things together is difficult.

But that’s where tenacity comes in. Either you say “this relationship, and the history we had is worth fighting for”… Or you don’t. Only you can choose.

Sadly sometimes you don’t have a choice. You aren’t the one that chose to stop fighting. You aren’t the one that didn’t communicate. If that’s the case you can ask to try, you can make suggestions, and even try writing a letter to them, or letting them know how you feel. But ultimately you have to let go.

I won’t lie, it’s going to hurt, but eventually you’ll wake up one day and realize you did all you could. It was their choice. And you can still go on.

And if you find yourself at that moment, I’m sorry. I am there, too. But we will make it through. We did what we could. Now it’s time to make a new life and find out what new passions we can follow.

On the road!

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Yesterday I left Seattle. All of my worldly positions are in my car and little trailer, and I am off to the wild blue yonder.

The days are filled with travel, song for good, taking video, and just enjoying some audio books and time to breath.

The nights are for editing the video I’ve gathered, and writing.

It’s very cozy inside my little trailer. Like my own small bedroom on wheels.

And frankly… I’m happy. The last month in Seattle had some very sad moments, and leaving it behind is like a weight of my chest. So here I come world, let’s do this thing!

Look for videos on youtube, and bitchute documenting my journey soon.