My short story Taken Away was getting up some Amazon.com charts this evening.
It was at:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,276 Paid in Kindle Store
#97 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > One hour (33-43 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AGJSEUI
I’m sitting in a park writing this. Why? Because I can, and because it’s a dream come true.
With my ThinkPad X60 in the park, my “office” today.
Decades ago I worked in towers. Specificlly, the tall office towers of downtown Toronto that I can now see far in the distance (I’ll put a pic up).
They were great for getting a view in, but were not someplace I wanted to remain for long.
The Towers
Those towers are tiny to me, now, from my view in the park and seem like toys. They are in dream-scale, like they might not even be real. That’s how I feel about my past, and what has lead me to here and now.
When I worked in those tall towers, I was young, just eighteen and out of high school. I worked for six months in those towers, and I swore I would not end up working there for the rest of my life. I finished up there and went back to school, to university to study Creative Writing.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunities back then that writers and content producers have today to self-publish on such a grand level. Also, I had done some buying into the erroneous belief that it was not possible to make a living on your art; what a foolish notion to entertain.
Many years went by, and I had even more jobs of different kinds, most of them in offices, too. But I still was not living my dream, and that was to do my creative work full time: writing, filmmaking and other art forms, too..
Suddenly the other day, I looked up from my computer and realized that I was now, in fact, doing what I had been craving to do for all these years! I was working on my writing, film and video making, and other art with all of my time and effort (though, when you are doing what fulfills you, and makes you happy, I don’t think it needs to be called “workâ€).
There were many times through those years past that I thought my dreams and goals were so far away that I might never reach them. However, I am living a lot of them, now.
I still have many goals and dreams to realize and strive for, as it’s on ongoing process.
But, I just wanted to say that dreams do come true, and you can do what means most to you in life. Just keep going when it’s tough to do so, and know they are real.
From the park “office,â€
-Dave
A good day for a park “office” visit.
p.s. Posted this to my blog from the park, too.
Rescueplan: D.U.M.B.s (Deep Underground Military Bases) – Book 3 is being edited, now. I’m in the final stretch of it, and the book will be available soon!
Here’s some teasers:
“What the hell are those?†Frank stepped back.
As the “spiders†drew closer, Leon could make out that they were soldiers encased in metal exoskeletons, who wore the armoured cages like a suit of clothing. As they moved their arms and legs, the metal arms and legs of the exoskeletons moved with them, mirroring them. He could see laser guns mounted at multiple points on the exoskeletons, and missiles, making them deadly machines, not just for the greatly increased strength and speed they gave the operators, but for the deadly firepower they had.
Frank’s face glowed, his eyes wide. “I hope we get to play with some of those!â€
Rescueplan ebook cover
july 20 2014
I’m getting the new cover ready for my book Brainjob. The old cover is still in place, but not for long, on Amazon. It’s $0.99 right now on special for the ebook, if you want something new to read, and like sci-fi thrillers. 125,000+ words, or 344 pages.
I was just reading an ebook from a “major publisher,” one of the “big 5” as they say in the biz, and so far I have found a typo and several formatting errors.
This is not the first ebook, or even paper book that I have found typos in from “major publishers” and “best sellers” – I find them ALL THE TIME! Still think self-published books are the only ones with typos? HAH! No! Not by a long, long, shot.
If anything, we self-publishers take more time and care with our work, as it’s our names and reputations on the line, and not a huge company someone can hide behind. Do we still sometimes have errors in our books? Sure, but we are not unique in this.
I have a running offer in my ebooks and paperbacks: if you find a typo, let me know what it is, and I’ll give you another ebook of mine, of your choice, free!
I don’t know of anyone else who offers this. I would sure appreciate it if my readers were kind enough to let me know if they find any errors! Then, I’ll make the corrections and the book will be improved. I work very hard to eliminate all of the typos that I can find, but they are sneaky buggers.
Would other writers or publishers like to know as well? Sometimes, if I find typos, I’ll let the writer, or publisher, or webmaster know. I usually don’t hear anything back from them. I wonder if I’m embarrassing them, or they feel bad because someone pointed out a fault in their work – but, it’s only done in the spirit of helping them make what they have better.
Oh, well…I guess not everyone appreciates it, or wants to be told about such things – simple things that can be corrected.
But as for me, I’m listening.
I’ve been fascinated by scratch game cards since I was a child.
I think it started with Pac-Man scratch-off cards, like I wasn’t pumping enough quarters into the arcade machines of the game at the time! (Yes, video games were big, monstrous black boxes that you had to travel to a mall, store, bowling alley, or an arcade to play, and would crush you if they ever toppled over, with most games costing only ¢25.)
It’s mysterious to have a game card before you, with areas covered with that silver-grey “stuff” concealing the secrets beneath. It takes patience to get the card home before you start working on it, the excitement building until you reveal the hidden parts of the card.
When you can’t take the tension anymore, you pull out your quarter and start scratching away at the blasted coating at your own pace; fast if you want it over with quick, or slow if you want to savour the game.
All too soon, you are finished the card and the game. But, if it was a lotto card, then maybe you have won some money (for more cards?). But, as always, there is something satisfying about having a pile of silver debris left over from your manual work.
While taking a break from writing stuff yesterday, I did a scratch lotto card and made a video. Did I win? I’m not telling!
Here’s an inspiring post by Hugh Howey with some advice on that magic word for writers, and most indie artists these days:
Because the bigger issue today is not how to self-publish your writing, it’s how to get people to read it. And to read it, first they have to find it.
He shares some tips and methods that anyone can implement to help readers discover your amazing work. There’s useful advice in his blog post, so I’ll pass it on (even though he has stated an issue with aliens being naked, like many are in my stories – heh, heh 😉 http://www.hughhowey.com/discoverability-and-donald-rumsfeld/
“Seamless data flow brings words and images together on a screen. Two beings inside the data stream.”
You can read my short story Cyber free on Amazon.com (for folks in the USA only, it seems.)
The ebook is also free on Google Play, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, iTunes, and more.
Edit: It’s been in the Top 10 in the Free Kindle Store for Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Cyberpunk for the past couple of days, now! (July 24, 2014)