Pride Before Support

There's a setting Blogger to help this person:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8050801&postcount=1

And this user could clear their Flash Cache and get working again:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266001

I've written to the Webmaster to let them help their users.  I didn't even ask for credit.  They're too busy hating me for some reason they've never articulated to even help their users.

That's professionalism for you, eh?

Don't Wait for "The Right Time"

My Prototopia fantasy work is on its third rewrite, and I've received some interesting feedback.  Valuable, I think.

In the story, my two young main characters are very rapidly attracted to each other.  The woman, an escaped sexual slave, can only relate in the way she's known for all the past years.  So she doesn't even recognize the feelings.  The man has just lost someone very close to him, and is escaping the memory by crossing a desert called The Waste.  He doesn't want to lose again, so he's fighting it.

In my story up to now, their relationship deliberately stagnates as they cross the desert.  Without spoiling the story, something happens on the other side that triggers a new view of their future, and that's when I have the relationship progress.

But those who've read the story say that the story is flat through that progression.  They get my logic, but don't enjoy the story.  Defending a plot point as "It really happens that way!" doesn't work.  I've heard that over and over.  If the reader doesn't enjoy the story, then the realism is irrelevant.  They still won't read it.

So what I've discovered is that putting a plotline on hold for "the right time," doesn't seem to be working.  It's got to progress in some way.  Or I've got to find a better way to set it aside.

So I've got a bit of a rewrite ahead of me.  Excuse me while I get back to work.

More MacHypocrisy

It's interesting to watch MacAllister Stone take such offense to banned books considering her arbitrary and capricious "standards" for banning people.  She STILL has provided absolutely no explanations for her actions.  One would think that someone claiming to have professional standards would act professionally.  Challenge her at all, and get banned, without explanation or any standard at all from her.

She's been provided source after source that explains to her why standards of customer service can and should apply to how her forums are run.  She doesn't acknowledge that, even though in the Newbie Guide she wrote she states that she is willing to discuss what people believe worthy of discussion.

She contradicts herself.  She violates her own posted standards.  And, most of all, she ignores well-documented professional ethics for people who engage in this kind of activity.

This *will* result in loss of her standing one day.  And it should.  And she will have no one to blame but herself.

Value of Openness, and Paranoia of Not

You know, I'm a paranoid old cuss.  I know that.  I'll divert from my intended path if a car stays behind me for more than two turns.  And I notice cars that stay behind me.  Sometimes, though, my "spidey-sense" gets going.  And I just have to dig to find out if it's working right.

I recently got an email sent to me offering a webinar on "The Value of Flexible Dedupe."  Presented by a site saying that their mission is "getting IT professionals unbiased, truthful information about their environments and the products that they might use in them."

Oh, really?  Well I'm going to change names but something tickled my brain about that claim.  Their presenter is listed as, "[J William Smith] is an expert in backup & archive systems; a space he has been working in since 1993. He has written three books on the subject, Backup & Recovery, Using SANs and NAS, and Unix Backup & Recovery. Mr. [Smith] is also an independent consultant and writer and has spoken at over 300 seminars and conferences around the world."

So imagine my surprise, or not, that a WHOIS lookup for these people wanting to provide "unbiased, truthful information" from an "independent consultant" named J William Smith, shows that the domain's name is registered by one "John W Smith."

Uh huh.

Mr Smith may, in fact, be a perfectly legitimate expert in Backup technology.  Maybe he's worked at it since 1993.  But, Mr Smith, I will not be attending your webinar.  To me, that hardly qualifies as independent *or* unbiased.  Consider yourself and your domain a permanent occupant of my spam filter.

Am I Up to the Challenge?

As a wannabe writer, one of the most valuable assets I can have is an idea.  From an idea can spring characters, a plot, that masterpiece work that lifts us into the ranks of a JK Rowling or Stephen King or Henry David Thoreau.  I seek them out all the time.

I've had the good fortune and the torture to have found what could be just such an idea.  A retelling of a classic story in open domain.  I don't see any tellings along this line.  I'm excited, itching to go...

And completely convinced that I don't have the talent to pull it off.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to try.  I can't not try.  But I'm scared into trembles that this great, terrific, earth-shattering idea isn't meant to be mine.  OR, this isn't the fantastic twist on a classic tale that my head tells me it is.

Inspiration can be a bitch of a muse, sometimes.  But I have to try.

Uneasy Feeling

Those of you who haven't noticed, I'm a wannabe author.  Got a whole novel written, currently going through third revision and being shopped to agents.  I'm also getting some good feedback from a local critique group.

I was somewhat disturbed, however, when a representative for a publisher called Greyden Press.  I don't mean to sound alarmist, but I can't help thinking that a publisher who has to come searching for authors, authors that would pay them to publish... well... that just doesn't feel kosher to me.

So I went looking at Greyden Press from Dayton, OH.  The domain is registered by one Jeffrey Relick, of Promatch Solutions.  A POD (Print On Demand) printer.

A search for Greyden Press through the Better Business Bureau reveals one complaint, and Greyden did not respond (could not, in fact, be found for a response).  Greyden's own site has a title proclaiming it in Dayton, yet the BBB lists it in Columbus, and with a disconnected number.

You know what?  No thanks.  Maybe this is a legitimate publisher, but I'm not going to pay someone if my work is at all able to stand on its own two feet.  And there's some red flag flying going on here that I wouldn't put money in even if they could guarantee sales of my book.  I'm not sure I would buy that guarantee, either.

I really don't think I could recommend them, either.

Selective Enforcement

And so the lovely folks over at AW jump on one guy (post quoting him, since his post is deleted), and the same powers-that-be that are so concerned about thread derailment are now silent when the thread about women's suffrage then proceeds to trash the Roman Catholic church.

Because that's what women's suffrage is all about, right?