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Tea Leaves in the Amazon

27 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Yesterday was an interesting day on the KRAG blog.

Being supremely new to blogging (Week 5), I’ve been watching the “Stats” page with interest. WordPress provides a nice collection of statistics which—depending on what you see—can be either fascinating or depressing. I’ve been watching the blog-stats bounce along: the number of daily views within easy reach of zero, fewer followers than eggs in a carton, most traffic sourced specifically from my “author” page over on Facebook.

Then, yesterday, a spike: I had views from India, Canada, the UK, Israel, and New Zealand; the number of views was more than double the average; and several folks took the time to leave comments. I asked myself: What the hell happened, and why?

And this reminded me of Amazon.com and their maddening “Sales Rank.”

Of course, I had been aware of Amazon’s “Sales Rank” for a long time, but it really meant nothing to me. I never buy a book because it’s a bestseller. I only buy books because they are recommended or because they just sound interesting. Sales Rank? Who cares? Pas moi.

But when my first novel went for sale up on Amazon, I did a complete 180. Suddenly, nothing was more important than that damned Sales Rank. I began tracking it, checking in on it hourly, in fact, entering what I found in a spreadsheet. I found websites devoted to the tracking of the Amazon Sales Rank. I watched my book’s ranking trend upward, break upward into the 6-digits, into 5-digits, back to six, up again, back again. It would change radically, without discernable logic, bouncing from a low rank of over 1 million up to under 60,000. Then, one day, as I repeatedly hit F5 to refresh my screen, it bounced up to around 1,400.

Number 1,400!! Out of millions! Boy-o-boy! I was on my way!!

When I hit refresh again, it was back at #90,000. What the hell happened? And why?

I did more research, found article upon article purporting to divine the math, method, and meaning behind these numbers. Taken in the aggregate, however, it quickly became clear that no one really knows how the Amazon Sales Ranks are calculated.

I stepped back, and thought again about what the Amazon Sales Rank meant to me as a reader. This arcane, inscrutable number meant nothing to me as a reader or purchaser of books, so it probably meant little to the public at large.

Of course, the stats associated with my blog have a little more meaning—each new reader is potentially a new person who might want to read one of my books—but should I spend time tracking the stats and trying to discern the reason they spiked or dipped? Shouldn’t I spend my time on more meaningful and productive efforts? Damned straight.

It comes back to why I do this: for the love of writing, and for the conversations it engenders. It doesn’t matter to me if this blog has 20 readers or 20,000; it’s the writing, the connection, and the interactions with readers and other writers that count most.

k

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Redefining Failure

26 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Often, when someone learns that I am a published novelist, they give me a puzzled look. I know what they’re thinking.

Why are you still working that day-job, living in that house, driving that car?

I used to think that, too. I had already figured out where I’d be teaching (after receiving my honorary degree), had already picked my house on the shores of Green Lake,  and had chosen the flash car I would use to zip around town.

Then I sold my first novel. Nothing changes your worldview more than achieving your dream.

As a writer, I have had some successes: eight novels published, four by a large NYC publishing house, plus a smattering of published short stories, articles, and essays. I’ve also had—I used to call them failures, but now after “periods of redefinition,” I think of them as successes, too. You see, when I started out, anything other than a bestseller was a failure, but soon I would only fail if I got anything other than a solid sale. In time, I accepted any sale as a success, and then…you see where this is going.

A long time ago, Dean Wesley Smith asked me, “If you knew you would never sell another story, would you still write?” My answer was flippant. “Of course,” I said, “but tell me now so I won’t worry about it.” I was green as springtime grass, back then, and had yet to feel the heartbreak that only publishing can provide. Today, my answer still stands, but it stands on its own; it doesn’t need the cocksure attitude to prop it up.

When I started, I wrote as a way to achieve fame and fortune. Sure, some people make gazillions at it, but you can count those who do it consistently on your fingers. In reality, writing is a hard way to make a living, and if you’re in it only for the money, my advice is to get out, now.

Here’s what people don’t get: writing is an art, but publishing is a business, and publishing doesn’t give a toss whether your book is good or bad, it cares whether your book will sell or sit on the shelf. Your novel can be total crap, but if it’s the kind of total crap that sells, it’ll get snapped up. But good or bad, if it does get snapped up, there still isn’t a lot of money in it, and one sale is no guarantee of future sales.

Today, I don’t write for fame and fortune, nor do I equate not having them with failure. I write because I want to tell stories, and tell them well. If a book of mine doesn’t get finished, that’s a failure. If I just hammer out some words and have a lackluster product, or write something I don’t love, that’s a failure. If the faithful readers who do love my books don’t get to read any more of the stories I want to tell, that’s a failure.

Of course, if a publisher thinks I’m putting gold on the page, or Hollywood wants to option my novels, I sure as hell won’t complain. But that’s gravy, and I am able to succeed just fine without gravy.

k

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Foreign English

26 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiEvery once in a while, out of the blue, a common, everyday word will suddenly look…wrong.

This has happened all my reading/writing life. I actually remember the first time this happened. I was in 5th grade, and I was reading along and came across the word “dirt.” I stared at that word for a while; I knew what it was, and I knew what it meant, but I was sure it was misspelled. I even went to the dictionary and looked it up. “Dirt” had become, suddenly, foreign English.

It doesn’t happen frequently—perhaps three or four times a year—but it has always puzzled me. Today, it happened again, but with a new twist.

Today, I was writing an email, tutoring someone on SQL basics. In checking my facts, I came across a snippet of code.

SELECT * FROM <table> WHERE . . .

That word, SELECT, just looked wrong. Did it really end with “CT”? Does any other word end with “CT”? I typed it out myself, and it looked fine. Here’s the deal: It only looked wrong in Courier font, all caps.

Now why would my brain suddenly reject (Hey! another word ending in “CT”!)—Why would my brain suddenly elect to reject (I’m going to have fun with this, now) the word “SELECT” as suspect? (Okay…I’ll stop.) And why only in Courier? And why does it look fine, now?

Some form of super-limited aphasia? Perhaps a pathway neuron that hooked to my recognition of “SELECT” suddenly died, and it took me an hour or so to reroute back to that brain-byte.

The brain is a mystifying thing. It does things we don’t understand, sometimes seemingly without reason.

I’ll never know. I only hope it isn’t just me… That would be weird.

k

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

A Tale of Two Tattoos

25 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Last night we screened the American version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” I was disappointed, but not unexpectedly so.

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the movie already, skip this post.

We read the books (in hardcopy, of course) years ago, burning through the trilogy in record time (for me…I’m a slow reader). While I didn’t find them flawless, I found them much more entertaining than Dan Brown or any of the other modern “thriller” genre. Personally, I found the whole Blomkvist-as-Babe-Magnet a bit tiresome, and felt Larsson intruding into the story with every conquest his hero made.

We did enjoy them, though, and when the Swedish movies came out, we snapped them up, screened them, and loved them.

In adapting a novel to the screen, you have to change something; you have to. Many people just don’t get this, and they’re angry when the screen version doesn’t match up with the novel, point for point, like a DNA profile. Every adaptation has to drop some elements, combine others, and sometimes insert new elements in translating from word to picture.

The Swedish versions did this perfectly. They dropped everything that was unnecessary (like the Blomkvist-as-Babe-Magnet wish-fulfillment), collapsed time, merged some ancillary characters, and told a story that was tighter, leaner, meaner, and more compelling than the original. Not bad.

Then, because Americans can’t be bothered to read subtitles, we made a version of the same movie, in English. It wasn’t atrocious, and if I’d seen it first, I’d have been less disappointed, but here were my complaints:

  • The opening credit sequence looked more like the start of a Bond film. It had nothing to do with the imagery of the film, a soundtrack that was jarring and out-of-place, and seemed so off-target that we wondered if they’d sent us the right DVD.
  • Why was Duck Lips (aka Daniel Craig) the only person in the movie who didn’t have a Swedish accent? Hell, even Robin Wright (great casting, BTW) did a passable job.
  • It was clear that someone in the Hollywood machine felt that the American version of Lizbeth had to be a bit more…sociable. While Rooney Mara did a very good job of acting, the writing and direction weakened the character. If you haven’t seen Noomi Rapace’s portrayal, rent the Swedish version and compare them. That is the Lizbeth Salander from the book.
  • Why change the end of the Harriet mystery? Why collapse the Anita/Harriet characters? The movie hit this point and it was like hitting a cobblestone road in run-flat tires. Bumpity-bump-thump, a few clumsy lines of dialogue, and Poof! Anita is gone. Where? Who knows, and it was so clunky I didn’t even scan back to parse the ham-handed expository block.

Not all was less than the original. Some of the Kubrik-esque rolling shots were quite effective, the soundtrack (apart from the opening credits) was effective, and Duck Li…I mean Daniel Craig was a more animated, less cryptic Blomkvist.

k

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Autopilot Disengaged

25 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Yesterday, I set my brain to percolate on the chapter I’m writing in Beneath a Wounded Sky. I know it’s working because my autopilot has been disengaged.

We all have one. For instance, I have to pay close attention to where I’m going until I get at least 5 miles from the house. If I don’t, say, because my wife and I are discussing last night’s movie, the autopilot kicks in and we end up taking the exit for the transit station I use.

I am very dependent on my autopilot in the mornings. I’m an “early bird” at work; I come in at around 6:15am. I do this because it gives me a good chunk of time before all the damned meetings start up, and it also means I get to leave earlier, and can have some daylight at home to do chores, etc.

But at 5:20am, going through the routine of ablutions and departure prep, I need that autopilot, and when my brain is silently stealing processing power to percolate on a problem, I end up with a broken routine. I forget to shave, or I forget my bus pass, or I leave my mobile on the credenza. At critical points in this book, I’ve had arrived at the bus stop only to turn around and go home because I’ve forgotten something critical.

This morning, as I was reaching into the medicine cabinet, I really didn’t have a clue what I needed to do next. Shave? Brush my teeth? What did I just do, and what comes next? Have I done everything I need to do?

As annoying as this is, it’s a good sign. And already the dam is starting to crack. I won’t give any clues away, but this is a transitional chapter in Beneath a Wounded Sky, and the way through it needs to feel right. I’ve already figured how all the characters are feeling at this point, and that’s a big hurdle; now I can start putting them in motion.

Now…where did I leave my pen?

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Obligatory Coffee Rant

24 Jul 2012 by KRAG

I live in Seattle, and we have a reputation for loving our coffee. I’m no different, however, I am not a purist by any means. I can’t tell if you brewed it with tap water or distilled water or filtered water or Artesian spring water, and unless your tap water is really awful, I bet you can’t either.

I have my favorite brands of coffee—Torrefazione Italia is the best I’ve had, but hard to find; Caffe D’arte is a close second, but not available in stores—but they’re so expensive that I only get them from a barista. For everyday brewing, I buy in bulk, try to get fair-trade beans of good quality, and grind it myself as needed in a good burr grinder.

But where I can make a huge difference is in the brewing.

I’ve tried almost every brewing method. I’ve tried brewing it cowboy-style in an open saucepan (toss in an eggshell to make the grounds sink), which I do not recommend, and for years we simply stuck with our standard drip-maker and a small Braun espresso machine.

On the more esoteric side, I’ve tried one of those vacuum-siphon brewers. Aside from the sheer coolness of watching it work, and the drama it imparts to the ritual cup of coffee, it only delivered a mildly better brew than standard drip coffee makers. High-maintenance to use, a bitch to clean, it also was so fragile that it broke after only a few days’ use; a disappointment, but not a tragedy, as I’d already made my decision that it wasn’t worth the trouble.

For pure outlandishness, I have also tried the Presso® espresso maker, which works solely on muscle power. A hand-pulled demitasse is pretty cool, and it cleans up pretty easily, too. It wasn’t expensive, and it’s very solidly built, so I’ll keep it around.

But, for the best cup of coffee you can brew, I say you can’t get better than the old-school, low-tech, tried-and-true method of the French press. We use a Freiling press (pictured top) that has double-sides of stainless steel, so it also acts as a thermal insulator, keeping the coffee warmer, longer. Put your burr grinder on “coarse” and brew up a cup. Steep it for 4 minutes (longer if you need a slice of coffee instead of a cup), keep the press on the table, and serve as needed. It is never bitter, never harsh. My wife, who gave up coffee because it upset her stomach, can drink it again, now that we brew it in the press.

Another win for low-tech!

k

Posted in Food, Low Tech, Seattle | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Percolation

24 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiNo, not coffee (though as a Seattleite, I have my opinions on that, too). Mental percolation.

Today, I pulled out my pen and pad, and read through the last bit I wrote yesterday. As I was reading I realized that I didn’t know where I had been taking the scene. Going further back, I read more. Still, no clue as to where I was going.

You might think that, after yesterday’s post about outlining techniques, I have it all down on paper, but even a detailed outline won’t tell you everything about a scene. I may have a five-page outline for this FC:V, with chapter breaks and notes on POVs, but there’s still a world of difference between that and the words and action in an actual chapter. The outline gives me the plot, but it doesn’t give me the subplots, the little “side trips,” or the variations from the original that pop up while I write a novel. It will give me the main characters and their general thoughts, but it won’t give me those subtle interactions or the conversational threads that are the fabric of the book.

In short, I knew where I was going, but didn’t know what road I had been paving to get there. 

Today, therefore, is a “percolation” day.

A percolation day is a day with more thinking than writing, where I remind myself throughout the day of where I want to go, and let my subconscious mull on the exact path I want to take.

It’s a strong tool. I use it to retrieve old memories (What’s that actors name?), figure out the answer to a question (Where are my keys?), or solve a problem (What is really happening in this scene?) It’s also a useful tool when I’m just starting to flesh out a story idea; percolation taps into creative processes that work best in the background, where the noise of language and logic is silenced, and where symbols and concepts can be swapped freely.

So, the pen and paper went away, and I pulled out my outline. I’ve changed a lot, as I’ve been writing Beneath a Wounded Sky, and have deviated from the outline at several points, but re-reading the original outline is still helpful. The original outline still has the excitement of that new idea, and the purest rendition of the roadmap I envisioned, so even after I hare off on a wild tangent, I can use that original outline to course-correct back toward the goal.

I’ll keep that outline at hand, today, and use it to keep the problem fresh in my mind. By this evening, then, I’m pretty sure I’ll know how I want to finish off this scene and close the chapter.

Percolation, baby…Percolation.

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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