Noveling Notes

Support Four Debut Authors and Snag $125

2011-11-29T14:20:00.001-08:00

There are prizes to be awarded in a new promo for four authors new books, but that isn’t why I’m writing this post. For some time now, I’ve been expounding on the idea of authors getting together to promote each others writing. Yes, when we slap our names on something, we want to know it is as good as what we do ourselves, but sometimes you also have to trust others.

So before I agreed to join this promotion, I bought and read Shannon Mayer’s new book Sundered. It’s not the kind of book I’d normally read. Urban fantasy, even with a strong dose of romance tied in, just isn’t what I spend my time with. But I found that Shannon was a good writer with a well thought-out idea and nicely executed story. Her concept that a new miracle drug quickly snatched up by a huge percentage of the population that then discovers it turns them into slobbering zombies was a great setup for an apocalyptic tale. But her sensitive drawing of the leading characters is what made the story worthwhile.

So, based on my experience with 1/4 of the authors involved in this promo, I’m throwing what little weight I have behind it and encourage you to do so, too. Link to this post, or for that matter, copy and paste it into your own blog. Let’s get some new authors launched!

Now here are the details:

With this contest, there is something for everyone and it’s SO simple to be in on the winning!

On November 28 and/or 29, purchase 1 or all 4 of the debut author’s books listed here. Then forward proof of purchase (the receipt Amazon sends you will do just fine) to : motionsrider@yahoo.ca and get up to 4 entries into a draw for a $100 Amazon gift card!

It’s that easy, no reviews, no hoops to jump through. Just a great .99 book or two. Or three or four. AND, if the person who wins the $100 Amazon Gift Card has purchased all 4 books, an additional $25 Amazon Gift Card will be awarded to the winner!

On top of that, 2 random commenter’s picked from 2 of our participating blogs will receive $5 gift Amazon gift cards . So, be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think of the promo, the books, or the authors.

Winners will be chosen randomly, one entry per person, per book.

All winners will be announced on December 7^th on Wringing Out Words (http://shannonmayer.blogspot.com)

“Between” by Cyndi Tefft

It just figures that the love of Lindsey Water's life isn't alive at all, but the grim reaper, complete with a dimpled smile, and Scottish accent.

After transporting souls to heaven for the last 300 years, Aiden MacRae has all but given up on finding the one whose love will redeem him and allow him entry through the pearly gates.
Torn between her growing attraction to Aiden and heaven's siren song, Lindsey must learn the hard way whether love really can transcend all boundaries.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Between-ebook/dp/B004XZUMBA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322190792&sr=1-1

“Until Dawn: Last Light” by Jennifer Simas

When darkness falls, whose side will you be on?
For the past six years, Zoë has been anything but “normal.” Struggling to accept her immortality and thrown into a war that’s been waging in the shadows for over a thousand years, Zoë must now become who she was meant to be, joining the other Chosen to save what’s left of humanity.

When the endless night falls over the Earth, will she be able to save the one man who reminds her of what it is to be human, or will it be too late?
Until Dawn: Last Light is a story of death and despair, love and longing, hope and hopelessness, and the ability to survive and keep going even when it seems impossible – when you want nothing more than to give up.

Link- http://www.amazon.com/Until-Dawn-Last-Light-ebook/dp/B005QUIXJY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322190717&sr=1-1

“The Kayson Cycle” by Jonathan D. Allen

A stranger enters a dying town and makes a desperate plea…

The Kayson Cycle introduces the Kayson Brothers, a pair of faith healers who once wowed crowds in a traveling show but went their separate ways after a night in which a healing took a dark turn. Jeffrey Kayson disappeared into the wilderness and William Kayson, wracked by guilt, moved to the failing mining town of Calico Hills to build a nice, quiet life – one that has lasted for over ten years.

His quiet, predictable life crumbles when a mysterious stranger walks into his tavern bearing a proposal to find his long-lost brother and do the one thing that William has sworn to never do again - have his brother heal a woman. William soon learns that he can’t escape his family – or his destiny.

Includes an exclusive sample chapter of The Corridors of the Dead. Please note that this is a Kindle Single, and around 6,000 words in length.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Kayson-Cycle-ebook/dp/B0061FDUA0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322190892&sr=1-1

“Sundered” by Shannon Mayer

A miracle drug, Nevermore, spreads like wildfire throughout the world allowing people to eat what they want, and still lose weight. It is everything the human population has ever dreamed of and Mara is no different. Only a simple twist of fate stops her from taking Nevermore.

As the weeks roll by, it becomes apparent that Nevermore is not the miracle it claimed. A true to life nightmare, the drug steals the very essence that makes up humanity and unleashes a new and deadly species on the world that is bent on filling its belly. Locked down within their small farm home, Mara and her husband Sebastian struggle against increasingly bad odds, fighting off marauders and monsters alike.

But Sebastian carries a dark secret, one that more than threatens to tear them apart, it threatens to destroy them both and the love they have for each other.
Now Mara must make the ultimate choice. Will she live for love, or will she live to survive?

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Sundered-Nevermore-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B005KOIVH0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1315021535&sr=8-3

Shifting Tense and Breaking the Third Wall

2011-11-10T11:00:00.001-08:00

It’s NaNoWriMo month and I’ve been busy writing the prequel to For Blood or Money, titled For Toil and Trouble. You can read along chapter by chapter as I write it if you don’t mind a few stumbles and inconsistencies.

While writing is taking a lot of time, I decided that this was also the perfect opportunity to do a revised second edition of For Blood or Money. Let’s face it, I’ve learned a lot about both writing and publishing since I released that book in 2008! Normally, I’m not a proponent of revising a published work unless substantive facts change, as in a non-fiction work. Revising a work of fiction implies that it wasn’t ready to be published the first time. But, I’ve been bugged by two “flaws” in the book that I really wanted to fix. One was the fact that my narrator shifts tense from past to present in the book. The second is the use of the pronoun “you” when narrating. I felt there were some real problems here.

So, I moved the book to a new more readable layout, and then started “proofreading” it for these errors. Some places I just had to change a word and all was well, and others I had to rewrite an entire paragraph. By chapter three, I’d made a bucketload of changes and I was beginning to doubt whether I was taking the right approach.

In writing For Toil and Trouble this month, I discovered I was encountering some of the same issues. I had to think this through more carefully.

Shifting Tense.

According to Ask Dr. Pretentious there are no less than 12 different tenses in the English language. (http://dr-pretentious.livejournal.com/23750.html?thread=144838#t144838) The simple past, present, and future most of us grasp. But adding progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive modifiers to each is a little more complex. I was having (past progressive) difficulty just separating past and present.

A bad example of shifting is also a colloquial use that I’ve heard frequently. “He shouted an insult at me and then he just leaves.” Both events described in the sentence happened in the past, but the second action was written as though in the present. I want to correct those.

An example that I’ve decided not to correct distinguishes past action from present state of being. For example: “I walked to Jitters this morning and ordered my usual decaf quad grande Americano. I like my coffee hot, strong, and black.” In this instance, the past tense verbs indicate an action that happened earlier. The present tense verb indicates a continuing state of being. As long as I have not stopped liking black coffee, it should be present tense. “I ran to the intersection and looked both ways. The streets of Seattle are laid out along a perfect grid.” The first sentence indicates a past action, the second (aside from being a false statement) expresses a continuing state of being. As long as the streets haven’t changed, the construction is correct.

Now to go back and correct the things I previously incorrectly corrected!

Breaking the Third Wall

This is a common occurrence in daily speech. We use the pronoun “you” as a universal substitute for the pronoun “one.” For example:

Dag: “Imagine your husband is cheating on you.”

Jen: “I’m not married.”

Dag: “Imagine a woman whose husband is cheating on her.”

Dag’s personalization of the hypothetical experience backfired on him. In the same way, if I use the pronoun “you” in my writing, I stop telling a story and attempt to personalize it by addressing the reader. That, except in rare occurrences, will also backfire. I did this a lot in For Blood or Money, and realized that it most frequently shows up in first person narratives. It is not unheard of in third person narratives, however. “He examined the contents of the bag and pulled out a pocket knife, a role of duct tape, and a ball of string. Then he reached for one more thing. You never know when chewing gum might come in handy.” In the last sentence, I stopped telling a story and gave an aside to the reader. (I also switched tense!) That the kind of thing is what I need to correct in both books.

If you have experience in either of these or an opinion about encountering tense shift or wall breaking in the books you read, I’d appreciate your comments.

Now, back to editing and writing!

Silence is Leaden

2011-10-23T08:57:00.001-07:00

In talking, consulting, and writing for self-publishers, I have often used the statement, “The day you stop selling your book, your book stops selling.” I’ve seen the eyes roll—excuse me, glance toward the ceiling, as my daughter would say. Nothing happens that fast. There is never a direct relationship between what I do and what happens in the market. In fact, sometimes silence is golden.

So, I ran an experiment. I didn’t post on my blog this week. I didn’t send out any email about my book. I didn’t contact any bookstores. I didn’t do any presentations….

The result? See the whole story at “The Rubricant!”

…There, see? I’m getting in the spirit of selling my books after my leaden silence of the past week. There’s only 8 days left until NaNoWriMo!

Getting ready for the 30-day sprint

2011-10-15T10:49:00.001-07:00

I’ve mentioned on several occasions that I write the first full draft of each novel in just 30 days, during the month of November. It is part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’ve done it 9 times in the past 7 years and am going for number 10 just 16 days from now.

But, I’m also aware that this must make people ask, “How good could it be if he writes it in a month?” …

This article is posted in full on “The Rubricant.” Follow me there!

…In the near future, I’ll be posting a link for specific information on “For Toil and Trouble” if you’d like to follow my writing progress during the month of November.

An Unexpected Gift

2011-09-05T07:40:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Minneapolis on the afternoon of Sept 4, pretty tired after 1700 miles in 4 days, but still pumping adrenalin in the excitement of being at the first stop on my author tour. We went directly to my in-law’s condo and visited for an hour, picking up my sister-in-law who also just arrived in town. Then we headed for the Taylor’s where I fixed a great Umbrian pasta sauce for dinner for 7 of us and told stories about the development of The Gutenberg Rubric and repeated my tour schedule to each person. Seemed to be the first question each person asked when she arrived.

The unexpected gift, however, came while visiting with my father-in-law in his condo. Now, Bob is 94 and many of his stories begin with where he was in World War II, but this one started off with where his wife was as an administrator for the Navy handling the conclusion of war contracts. Her boss gave her a gift. Bob pulled a book that he had carefully wrapped in a couple of sandwich bags and handed it to me.

I recognized the style and era of the book immediately. If you’ve been following me for long, you might remember a post I did in April titled “The Origin of My Love Affair with Books.” In it I posted pictures of 19th century editions of poetry books that were bound in soft leather covers and thin paper. The book my father-in-law was showing me was obviously of the same era. Aucassin & Nicolete, a French love story translated by Andrew Lang, was published in this edition by Roycrofters in 1898. Roycroft Press was the self-publishing arm of Elbert Hubbard, founded in 1895. It specialized in creating these beautiful book art examples. By 1915, over 500 people worked at Roycroft producing these hand-tooled works of art. I’m fortunate to have two or three, including Hubbard’s Little Journeys in my collection.

But the real treasure of this book was on the flyleaf. The book was signed with a dedication by the famous Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley. The pencil inscription praises Roycrofters for their chamois bindings and artistry. I haven’t been able to decipher the exact words yet, but you can click on the image at the left to see it in a much larger size. The addition of James Whitcomb Riley’s signature probably triples the value of an already prized collector item. You can read about the Roycrofters at The Webpage of the Roycrofters.

The real surprise was yet to come, however. When I had appropriately oohed and aahed over the beautiful work and borrowed a pair of readers so I could read as much of the inscription as possible and verify the date, Bob announced that it was mine. A gift that will be cherished for many years.

Seeing the book tucked in its plastic sandwich bags, however, was a severe reminder to me that works like this need some special care. As soon as I get it home, I intend to make some archival boxes for some of my rarest books so they escape any further deterioration. Several of my older bindings have been damaged by being shelved upright, crushing the soft leather edges and flattening the deckle of the pages. One of the most precious has a 50-year-old coffee cup ring on the front cover. I’d like to keep these in better condition, and I hope to share them with members of the Seattle Center for Book Arts (SCBA) in a presentation next year. SCBA is a beneficiary of the sales of The Gutenberg Rubric and I intend to lean on the talents of some of my fellow board members to help me restore and preserve these books.

Day Four Stats:

Left Jamestown, ND at 7:00 a.m.

Arrived Minneapolis, MN @12:45 p.m. (Central Time).

Miles driven today: 351

Total miles driven: 1705

Quote of the day: Sister-in-law said of the house they lived in as children which had changed hands several times in the past couple of decades: “That house is a serial divorce!”

Read the full daily log and see The Gutenberg Rubric event schedule at The Rubricant.

New Booktour Travel Blog

2011-08-22T08:40:00.001-07:00

I’m happy to announce a new travel blog that I will be updating daily during my September 2011 booktour for The Gutenberg Rubric. I’ll be traveling 7,000 miles in my little Prius, presenting at independent bookstores and for private parties. Simultaneously, I’ll be participating in a virtual booktour as guest blogger on several bookblogs.

This is going to be a great month, and while I’ll occasionally be posting on this site as well, the posts here will start reflecting the next project I’ll be working on, tentatively titled “To Be or Be Lost,” a new Dag Hamar mystery. So please check out the new tour blog, The Rubricant, (http://www.gutenbergrubric.com/blog) for daily updates in a “Jack Kerouac On the Road style”.

I hope you will join me for my booktour, either virtually or in person. September is going to be a very good month!

Trip update, new blog, nervesssss

2011-08-19T17:04:00.001-07:00

I just ordered 100 more copies of The Gutenberg Rubric to be drop-shipped to Minneapolis where I’ll have my first book sales on September 5 after a 4-day drive from Seattle. Every time I write a check and think, these are my books, made out of paper, that I will sell, I get a bit of a queezy stomach. It’s pretty ballsy, don’t you think? I’m carrying a computer with order info and addresses where I can drop ship to different places around the country—just in case I run out!

I keep trying to not make my expectations too high, but also not to drop them so low that there is really no reason to go. It’s quite the balancing act. This, as they say, is it.

I’ve begun my new trip blog where I’ll be focused on the travel, people I meet, pictures of the events, and news about where I will be next. I’d love it if you tune in at http://www.gutenbergrubric.com/blog. I’ll be posting continuously now until after the trip is finished at the end of September (technically, October 2) and then regularly as I continue to work on a book about the experience of being your own publisher/promoter/presenter/salesman. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, so please stop by and comment on what you read!

Speaking of updates, I now have six blogs on my simultaneous blog-tour. I have a lot of open dates, so if you are interested in a guest-post on your blog, I’d love to contribute. And I’ll continue to post here on LJ and FB as the trip progresses as well. I figure that with the blog, guest posts, and this space, I’ll be writing the equivalent of another NaNoWriMo novel (50,000 words) during September! I’ve got to see how that works with driving 8 hours a day to get 7,000 miles in.

Here are the locations and dates for my coming blog-tour. If you have a date in September that you’d like me to guest-post on your blog, let me know.

Check out these great bookblogs in advance. I’m sure you’ll want to follow them.

Are you on or near The Gutenberg Rubric Tour Route?

2011-08-14T20:04:00.001-07:00

The September book tour for The Gutenberg Rubric is finally shaping up pretty well for the first half, but I’m having some trouble filling the second half of the trip with bookstore or house-party or book club stops. Please take a look at the map below (click on it for an enlarged view) and see if you are near my route or one of my estimated stops. If you’d like to host an author signing party in your home or a local coffee shop and can get 20 people to come, I’ll probably make a stop for you unless its already booked. I can’t guarantee an evening stop, depending on where it is on the route.

Here is the tour schedule as it currently stands:

Sept1-4: Drive Seattle to Minneapolis. Could stop in Missoula, Forsyth, Jamestown.

Sept 5: 7:00 p.m. Reading at Becketwood Senior condos. Could do a noon or afternoon meet-up, but it is Labor Day.

Sept 6: 7:30 p.m. Reading at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Calhoun Square, Minneapolis. Could do a breakfast, noon, or afternoon meet-up. I will be leaving town as soon as this event is over to get part way across Wisconsin by midnight.

Sept 7: 5:30-7:00 p.m. Reading at City Center News & Books in Plymouth, IN.

Sept 7: 7:00-10:00 p.m. Meet & Greet with local friends and classmates at the Brass Rail in Plymouth

Sept 8: 3:00 p.m. Student/author discussion on the writing life and publishing at UIndy, hosted by Prof Kevin McKelvey. Location to be announced.

Sept 8: 5:00-6:00 p.m. Book signing at UIndy Bookstore across from the cafeteria

Sept 8: 7:00-8:30 p.m. Reading and signing at Bookmamas in Irvington (Indianapolis) IN.

Sept 9: Travel to sister’s house in Columbus OH. Could do an evening event on this Friday.

Sept 10: 1:00-3:00 p.m. Reading and signing at The Book Suite in Columbus OH. Could do an evening event on Saturday.

Sept 11-12: Driving from Columbus OH to Washington DC. I’m attempting to set up an event Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh. Anyone with contacts or would like to host a house party, please let me know!

Sept 12: 5:30-7:30 p.m. House party in Washington DC.

Sept 13-14: Attempting to set up readings in Washington DC and/or Philadelphia, but having trouble finding a bookstore to host. They are all full up! Would love to do a house party anywhere in the greater DC/Baltimore area for 20 or more guests. Anyone want to host at a favorite coffee shop after work or mid-day? Book clubs?

Sept 15-17: Will be in Broadway VA at sister’s home. Looking for an event or two in Northern VA anytime on the 15th or 16th. Will even come as far as Richmond!

Sept 17: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Reading and signing at The Bookworks in Staunton VA. That’s my last stop in Virginia before heading west. Could do an event that night in Huntington, WV.

Sept 18-21: Driving across promising territory where I could do events in Lexington, Louisville, Evansville, St. Louis, Springfield, Joplin, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Amarillo. Need hosts, leads, or suggestions. I’d love to meet you and could add a day here if needed.

Sept 22-23: With sister near Lubbock, TX. Would consider any event if anyone knows anyone who lives within a hundred miles of there!

Sept 23: Driving through to Denver CO. Looking for an event in Denver that evening. Alternatively I could stop short in Pueblo or Colorado Springs for an evening event as I’m sure I’ll be tired of driving. Anyone there?

Sept 24-25: Steamboat Springs CO. Will be with my college buddy David and tentatively reading at Off the Beaten Path bookstore. Possible party and library reading.

Sept 26: Salt Lake City, UT. I’ve always wanted to visit the Family History Library there and plan to get in early enough to do so, especially since it is mentioned in the book. I’d like to do a reading so am looking for a bookstore/host.

Sept 27: My birthday! Who are the lucky people in Boise ID who want to help me celebrate? I’d love to do a reading as my contribution to the festivities!

Sept 28: Just in time for my friend’s birthday, I’d love to do a reading in Walla Walla, WA. I’m open to one of the great bookstores, a coffee shop, winery, or whatever. This is the last stop before my slide home.

Sept 29: Back to Bellevue WA for a day of recovery before:

October 1-2: Northwest Bookfest in Kirkland WA where I will have a tent and will be selling books and doing printing demos with the Seattle Center for Book Arts.

As you can see there are some holes in my schedule, and I have a day’s slippage if I need an extra day someplace. I’m working on the southern leg westward on scheduling now, so if you have suggestions, let me know. If there is a compelling reason, I could change my route to the south to include Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, and Dallas.

And, by the way, I’ll be doing a simultaneous virtual tour, so if you are not on the route in blue, let me know and I’ll be happy to add you to the blot-tour for the month of September. I’ll begin on Sept 1 with a post on http://fewmorepages.blogspot.com/.

What is paper?

2011-07-27T11:54:00.001-07:00

I’m not being facetious. We think of paper as a timeless commodity. We’ve all heard the story that the word was derived from the Greek name of a plant called Cyperus papyrus, and if you are like me, you probably figured that was what they made paper out of in ancient times. After all, we have ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Greek writings that date back close to two millennia BCE. Paper must have been one of the earliest inventions of mankind.

It ain’t necessarily so. Papyros was used as a substrate for writing in ancient times, but its relationship to paper is really in name only. The substrate was made of woven strands of the the plant fiber and was probably almost as hard to make as to write on. More common for the writings of the Bible, the ancient Greek philosophers and playwrights, and government lackeys was animal skins. We commonly refer to the scraped and treated hides of animals used for writing as vellum or parchment. This substrate was so commonly used that even at the time of Gutenberg, 45 of the copies of his famous Bible were printed on vellum. That’s 5,000 or so calfskins!

Paper as we know it wasn’t really invented until about the 2nd century BCE in China. It made its way slowly westward by way of the Islamic world to Europe in the 13th century CE. The paper-making process had advantages over using animal skin as nearly any fibrous plant could be used to make the paper. The plant was ground and mashed up with water, then shaken out into sheets and dried. At our home, we went through a long period when my daughter was about 8-9 where slurry was made in the blender out of various types of scrap paper, was shaken out on a hand screen, and then plastered against a window to dry. She used the homemade paper to make holiday cards, books, and school demonstrations.

Some of the contemporary terms we use to describe paper come from the process. For example, “laid” refers to the imprint of the drying screen on one side of the paper (the side on which it was laid). “Deckle” refers to the raw, uneven edge of the finished sheet, now neatly trimmed off the paper we put through our inkjet printers. And “watermark” is the subtle logo of the paper manufacturer that was a part of the drying screen and left a faint trace on the paper that you can usually only see on fine papers by holding them up to the light. Even the term “ream” is derived from the Arabic word rizmah that translates as “a bundle.”

The 135 copies of the Gutenberg Bible that were not printed on vellum were printed on fine paper imported from Italy. Even though Mainz, Germany had paper-making mills a hundred years before the printing press, Italy had the reputation of the finest papers made, largely through the monopoly held and preserved by the Fabriano family in Ancona Mills. Heavy fines were imposed upon anyone who taught people outside the area the art of paper-making.

One of the key elements in the thriller The Gutenberg Rubric is how manuscript and book dating is done. Determining the location of the manufacture of the paper can lead a long ways toward identifying the time and place of the printing. The carbon breakdown in organic matter is traceable and can lead to relatively accurate dating of a substrate.

For more information about the history of paper, Neather Batsell Fuller, Instructor of Anthropology at St. Louis Community College, has written an excellent paper that can be found at A Brief History Of Paper.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Hot Lead, Cold Type, and Little Digital Bits: Part III

2011-07-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

What was it about books that really changed when we entered the digital age? At first, it was little more than the input. In 1986, I was publishing a variety of association journals and newsletters. I was driving from typesetter to printer with a bunch of keylines when I saw a billboard that advertised a Desktop Publishing Seminar. That day I bought my first computer (Apple 512k Fat Mac) and publishing software. I waited three months for Aldus PageMaker to be released so I could really start publishing electronically. But the process I used post-computer was for publishing was substantially the same. I simply did my design work and layout on the computer and produced the keylines whole instead of doing paste-up. Later, I went direct to negative without keylines, and eventually even experimented with on-press imaging. The result was little more than the automation of a process that publishers had been using since the mid-50s.

The change came when shifted the delivery system. Instead of delivering content on paper, we began delivering content on-screen. According to the traditional designers and publishers of the day, we were out to kill the book. I have to confess, even though it wasn’t our intent, as a part of the on-screen revolution we did our part to maim if not kill.

First off, we destroyed typography. When the Internet was devised, it was a means of making text instantly available across a wide network. The text had no formatting. It was a wonder if we could even tell where paragraphs ended. But engineers had an answer. The World Wide Web came into existence and html provided the tools for formatting content. Having worked with computer programmers for the past decade and a half, it is no surprise to me that the “design” of Web pages more closely resembled computer code than books. The type choices had to be what was universally available and the proprietary fonts of the publishing industry were left out of the mix. Even when designers and typographers entered the mix, the results of their efforts remained buried in select software that did not transfer from device to device.

The resulting typography and, by extension, design was terrible, and it is no wonder that the bulk of traditional print designers eschewed the Web and then eBooks. Typography is terrible, letterspacing is terrible, there’s no pagination, the design falls apart, everything is linear, you can’t control what it looks like, it is unreadable. Sound familiar? Those traditional designers who did transfer into electronic design often attempted to assert their control by specifying type in number of pixels, forcing exact page sizes, and even embedding fonts or using graphic images of pages to preserve exact formatting. As soon as these pages left the computer they were designed on, they fell apart. Designers couldn’t control what readers read on.

So a new breed of content designer began to emerge that understood both publication design and computer code. What they discovered was that giving up control over some aspects of the design resulted in better-looking documents across a wider range of devices. The engineers weren’t all as design-blind as we thought they were. And when we applied appropriate document structure to our content, the design could be enhanced many times over.

Designing for eBooks is still a tricky process. Converting print documents (whether through scan or conversion of PDF or text files) often results in poorly structured content that cannot be effectively laid out on the electronic page. It takes a designer who understands the structural code of XHTML and CSS to create a good looking eBook, and one that understands the limitations of the various reading devices to create a great one.

Sometimes I envy the designers who worked with hot lead, but I imagine those who converted from hand-lettered manuscripts to the metal bits of type bemoaned the loss of artistry and control they had when they dipped a stylus in ink and drew each letterform on the page.

As shown in the story of The Gutenberg Rubric, there have been multiple revolutions in the design and creation of books. Each one requires the use of new tools and those who reach the highest levels of artistry do so because they take the time to learn how to use their tools well.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Hot Lead, Cold Type, and Little Digital Bits: Part II

2011-07-20T06:57:00.001-07:00

Aside from adding power to the typesetting process and the printing press, very little changed about printing for 500 years after Gutenberg started the process. He could have walked into almost any print shop in the world in 1950, set type, and pulled a galley proof much the same way he did in 1450. In the late 1800s, two automated typesetting machines that cast the type bits in the same order that they were used in the text came into prevalent use, the Monotype machine and the Linotype machine. Interestingly, Gutenberg had already used the basic method (though not the mechanics) of the Linotype by setting the Catholicon in two-line slugs all the way back in 1460!

But in the mid-1900s, two developments changed the way printing was done as rapidly as the invention of the press—Offset Lithography and Photo Typesetting. Lithography had been around for quite a while and was a printing method based on the principle that oil and water don’t mix. Instead of resting on top of the bits of lead, the ink was held on a flat surface, collecting in the areas that were not moist. The ink was then transferred to the paper in a similar fashion to any printing press. But the offset process came about with the discovery that the ink could be transferred to a roller from the litho stone and then rolled onto the paper. This process was faster and cleaner than letterpress.

The development of photography had advanced significantly by the 1950s, and it was discovered that the photographic process could be used to create the lithographic plates. That meant that type could be set rapidly by simply photographing a page, or exposing the plate to a film negative of the type. By the mid-1960s, a revolution as fast as Gutenberg’s, the majority of printing was being done by offset lithography and cold type. The day’s of hot lead came to an abrupt end and by the mid-1980s it was almost impossible to find a letterpress in production use. Typesetters trained on the Linotype and Monotype machines were supplanted and a new era of printing was begun.

The Gutenberg Rubric gives a glimpse inside the movement to preserve the art of the letterpress in the face of offset lithography and cold type. Old-time printer Frank Drucker participates in a competition to reproduce a famous work of the incunabula, using only the tools and technology available in 1460. There are still organizations, like the Seattle Center for Book Arts, that preserve and teach the “black art” of the letterpress. A portion of the proceeds from sales of The Gutenberg Rubric is donated to SCBA to help fund the teaching of these arts.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Hot Lead, Cold Type, and Little Digital Bits: Part I

2011-07-19T08:24:00.001-07:00

In 1450, the process for creating books—whether in codex or scroll form—was to sit for several weeks with a pen and inkpot and copy a work letter-for-letter. By 1460, just 10 years later, the printing press had spread throughout Europe and was being used to mass-produce books. It all had to do with the invention of little pieces of metal type that each bore an individual character on it. Getting those bits of metal required several inventions, most of which we credit to Johannes Gutenberg.

First, there was the type design. The type used in the Gutenberg Bible was patterned after that found in a manuscript Bible of Mainz, which also served as the guide for setting the pages. While the Latin alphabet included only the basic 26 letters used today, Gutenberg’s design included as many as 250 different glyphs that spanned upper and lower case letters, punctuation, abbreviations, characters in various widths, and ligatures (double characters combined into a single glyph). For every character in the text, about 1/4 inch or 18 points in size, a punch had to be engraved. The punch was the perfect reverse of the letter form.

Then there was the matrix, or mold for the type itself. The punch was designed to make the impression in the mold into which the the hot lead was poured. The mold had to be reusable because many copies of each character were needed to keep the manufacturing process moving. If any letters were damaged in the process, they also had to be replaced.

Third, there is the alloy itself—one of the most remarkable parts of the invention. Movable type in clay and wood had been in use in China for some time, and there were already experiments in metal type in Korea at the time of Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that Gutenberg knew about these, but woodblock printing was certainly known in Western Europe by Gutenberg’s time. The problems with these various predecessors had to do first with the durability of the type to withstand repeated impressions under the pressure of the press, and the uniformity of the type. Even early printing examples from Gutenberg’s shop before the Bible show an unevenness in the height of the type causing a dark impression for some letters and a lighter impression for others.

This is where Gutenberg’s experience as a goldsmith and perhaps even as an alchemist came into play. Rumors of his experimentation in alchemy have certainly been fueled by the composition of the lead alloy used in the type—lead, tin, and antimony—the same elements used in the most prevalent alchemical formulae. Antimony, a highly toxic metal, has the unusual property of expanding as it cools from molten to solid, unlike the other metals in the mix, which contract. The combination of the expanding antimony with the contracting lead and tin resulted in a dimensionally stable alloy, so every character retained the exact shape and size of the mold.

In The Gutenberg Rubric, incunabulist Keith Drucker must master the art of casting the dimensionally stable alloy using only the measuring tools of Gutenberg’s day. The result of his work is crucial to unlocking the secret of Gutenberg’s code.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Is Gutenberg relevant in an age of electrons–Part IV

2011-07-14T08:23:00.001-07:00

Establishing a Distribution System

Books, in the Gutenberg world, are physical objects that must be in immediate proximity to the reader in order to be of use. Prior to the invention of the printing press, readers had to go to where the books were in order to read them. The books were in the libraries, usually of wealthy people or institutions (like monasteries and universities).

The books stayed put. The reader came to the book.

During the incunabula—the first fifty years of printing—the distribution system changed. Books were no longer stationary. By 1500, Aldus Manutius in Venice was producing octovo-sized books that could be “carried in a saddle-bag.” There are descriptions of book-sellers on the streets at every corner hawking their wares—the 16th century equivalent of Starbucks. This may have been the largest number of street vendors of books until the book-piracy wave in Peru began. As far as the distribution system goes, people still had to go to the book repository to buy them—often in uncut signatures that then had to be taken to a book-binder—but then they could take their books with them wherever they wanted to go.

Booksellers began to move off the street into storefronts. We had the birth of the bookstore.

Even the library system changed. People began to borrow books from the library rather than go to the library to read the books. In The Gutenberg Rubric, the heroes are forced to deal with a new threat: biblio-terrorism—attacks on libraries. This threat was conceived to convince people to stay away from libraries—the one place that they trust for information more than the Internet.

But the distribution system is changing—in fact, has changed. Starting in the early 2000s, people began moving away from brick and mortar bookstores as they used the computer to order their books and have them delivered to them. Readers no longer have to go to the book at all. The book comes to them. As the book has gone through this change in distribution, it has also gone through a change in form. We no longer need the physical object to hold in our hands in order to read the book. The book can be delivered electronically.

Some pundits have declared that the physical book is an artifact of the distribution system. In fact, the distribution system was created to support the printing of books. Regardless, there is no question that the change in distribution over the past ten years is as radical as the change that occurred in the first 50 years of printing. It remains to be seen if brick and mortar bookstores will survive the change, if they will evolve into something new, or if they will simply fade away. What is clear though, is that the relevance of Gutenberg on the distribution system ten years ago was at a 10. Today…

Relevance of the Gutenberg distribution system: 5.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today and save 20%!)

Is Gutenberg relevant in an age of electrons–Part III

2011-07-13T08:28:00.001-07:00

The Leveling of Content Value

Imagine a time when people gathered in public places—the church, temple, town square, palace courtyard—to hear the reading of words. The words they heard, be it scripture or decree, were important. They were so important, they had been written down so that every word could be repeated exactly to the listeners. These words had value.

Granted, storytellers and minstrels gathered crowds as well. They told tales and sang songs. They entertained. But there was no expectation that those stories were of utmost importance. After all, they had not been written down.

It was a costly endeavor to painstakingly copy a manuscript. It took months. It not only had to be accurate, it had to be legible and beautiful. At the time of Gutenberg, a full copy of the Bible cost about the same amount as a functioning vineyard.

Then came the printing press.

Of course, Gutenberg started with the Bible. His journeyman and successor then progressed to the Psalter. Gutenberg himself moved on to the Catholicon. Within 50 years (the term of the Incunabula or cradle of printing) Aldus Manutius was printing obscure romance (The Hypnerotmachia Polyphili) in a convenient octovo size (about the size of a trade paperback) that would conveniently fit in a saddle-bag for leisure reading.

Any written words were worthy of print. And no matter what the content, the books had the same value.

This leveling of content value has continued and advanced in the digital age. On a single page of Twitter posts, one might read an announcement by the President of the United States and what a 14-year-old had for breakfast. They are treated equally.

Some have decried the rise of self-publishing in this era as being the death knell of literature precisely because the reader can no longer tell what is valuable content and what is not. Indeed, the mainstream publishers would have us believe that we can only trust what they have published because it has been vetted, edited, and determined valuable enough to invest in. In reality, the vetting and investment have been based on what the publisher thinks will sell, not on the value of the content. We’ve all seen some incredible crap published that sells a lot of copies.

On a bookstore shelf, we would be hard-put to to tell the difference between many independently published books today and those that come from the major houses. They are equally well-designed (sometimes better) and equally well-produced. Only by reading the work can one discern whether the content is good or bad or indifferent.

In The Gutenberg Rubric, the heroes strive to discover a cache of ancient manuscripts. The manuscripts could have immense scholarly and economic value. They would be the original words of some of the world’s great works. They could throw religious belief, national boundaries, philosophies, and even science into disarray, simply because they are of such value. How do we know they were of such value? Simply because they were set down before printing.

For good or ill, the relevance of Gutenberg in the leveling of content value: 10.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Is Gutenberg relevant in an age of electrons?–Part II

2011-07-12T07:50:00.001-07:00

The Stabilization (Stagnation?) of Truth

Gutenberg is given a lot of credit for making literacy a standard for all people. As Marshall McLuhan wrote: “Gutenberg made everyone a reader, Xerox makes everyone a publisher.”* After all, when only the wealthy could afford books and could hire scholars to read them, why would a common person need to read? But when books became a commodity and available to the masses, then being able to read made sense.

But how did people get information before literacy? Essentially, it was spoken from one person to another. Town criers came to the central square and called out news that had happened weeks or months ago. Preachers quoted the scripture from the pulpit. Decrees and laws were announced. And stories were told.

If you’ve ever played the game of “telephone,” you know what can happen to a message as it is passed from person to person. It can change—in fact, change is almost inevitable. Imagine an age in which all information is passed from person to person verbally. Even in highly disciplined scriptoria where scribes painstakingly copied manuscripts, it was possible to introduce and even to multiply errors.

As a result, doctrine, science, politics, and even history were in a constant state of flux. There was less importance placed on objective facts than on the mythology that surrounded them. It is, after all, the myth that is easiest to recall and repeat. Facts make a poor story. The myth reveals the truth that is hidden in facts.

Gutenberg changed that, for better or worse.

In The Gutenberg Rubric, a story from the Internet is read to an old man. He responds, “I’ll believe that when I see it in print.” In fact, seeing it in black and white has become the standard for weighing believability. Printing stabilized truth by supplanting it with recorded facts. In the worlds of doctrine, science, politics, and history, the printed word locks us into the minds of our forebears. We must continue to believe the way they believed because “It has been written.”

The advent of Wiki technology on the Internet has shown the possibility of returning to dynamic truth rather than stagnant truth. This has been greeted with cries that it can’t be depended upon. Yet we see more and more instances in which information presented through the editorial province of the community is depended upon more than objective proof from facts. Undeniably, however, the Gutenberg press changed, for good or ill, the way we view truth and facts.

Relevance score in the stabilization of truth: 10.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

*I’ve looked all over for the source of this widely quoted statement and only find a reference to “The Weekly Guardian.” If anyone knows the actual source and date, I’d appreciate it!

Is Gutenberg relevant in an age of electrons? Part I

2011-07-11T08:53:00.001-07:00

In the year 2000, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press consistently ranked in the top ten (usually at number one) inventions of the second millennium. We love lists. Gutenberg’s invention was right up there with such notable things as the electric light, the telephone, the computer, space flight, and glass windows. But is the printing press, even in its current incarnations, still relevant as a history changing invention?

The Invention of Mass Production

We could argue about this for a long time, but I’ve chosen simply to start a few posts about what kind of contributions Gutenberg made with his invention of the printing press and how they permeate society today. Not surprisingly, very few of these items have to do with the physical invention itself. Yes, Gutenberg created a matrix punch system for creating molds. Yes, he got the formula for lead type dimensionally stable. Yes, he mixed an ink that would adhere to the lead and that could be transferred to a substrate and that would have blackness and durability to last centuries. Yes, he figured out how to adapt a wine press for printing. Isn’t that enough?

The importance of the printing press was not in putting ink on paper. Let’s take one example of how this changed the world. The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is the first example of mechanical mass production.

I find this amusing. Even with my eBooks and my e-reader, I find myself lovingly caressing paper books, beaming with pride over my newest release, feeling like “it is real” once I hold the physical object in my hands. Is there any other mass-production artifact that I feel the same way about? I’m not even that fond of my car. I disdain the coffee shops that use automated espresso machines to measure the coffee, tamp it to perfection, and force water at the exact right temperature through the grounds as “coin-op baristas.” I’ve always considered mass-produced and automated to be inferior to handmade.

Yet, for nearly five centuries after the Gutenberg Bible, the greatest technical advance in printing was adding steam or electric power to the press, removing it one step further from the craft of creating books. There’s nothing really like a good old-fashioned hand-written scroll.

But the impact of the printing press on the way we create things today is undeniable. Even the computers, smartphones, and e-readers we use to create and read electronic books are themselves manufactured and mass-produced. To be sure, we use robotics and sterile environments for the assembly-line work, but the process used is essentially the same one that Gutenberg used to automate the production of books.

Relevance score in manufacturing processes: 10.

(The Gutenberg Rubric, a novel by Nathan Everett, will be released on July 28. Order your copy today!)

Summer Reading Kickoff–Two for One!

2011-06-21T06:37:00.001-07:00

It’s summer Solstice, which makes it a perfect time to kick off your summer fantasy reading time. In my continued effort to join in the promotion of new books this year, I’ve chosen today’s release of Gary Caplan’s The Return of the Ancient Ones to really get my summer started right. And to celebrate Gary’s release, I’m giving away Steven George & The Dragon eBooks to everyone who buys a copy of Gary’s book!

Have you ever wondered what you’d get if you crossed an EPIC fantasy book with a twist of sci-fi?

Pure magic, right?

Gary Caplan's The Return of the Ancient Ones combines futuristic with fantastic! This Sword & Sorcery/ Fantasy hybrid will carry you into a well-crafted world reminiscent of Tolkien and J.K. Rowling.

No surprise this book is the winner of the "Fiction: Fantasy/Sci-Fi" category of the 2011 International Book Awards!!

http://garycaplan.org/book/

Escape into a world of adventure and magic. And invite your kids along (ESPECIALLY any teenage boys you may know). Because, like the great otherworld epics before it, The Return of the Ancient Ones appeals to young AND adult readers.

The Return of the Ancient Ones illustrates how your fiercest enemy can become your most aggressive ally—a great reminder to never judge things by how they appear on the surface.

The hero, Gideon Finelen, holds an ancestral legacy that makes him the only one who can use the magical Sword of Order.

Dramatic, playful, and sublime, this book is what the fantasy genre was meant to be. If you want an escape from reality, this is a great read!

Once you order The Return of the Ancient Ones, you’ll receive an access code that will give you a free ePUB eBook of Steven George & The Dragon. Instructions are on the site when you follow the link below. You’ll find other great bonuses on the launch page as well. If you are buying for someone else, take advantage of getting a little gift for yourself as well!

This summer be swept away to another world. Escape the mundane around you and join Gideon and his friends as they fight to save their world in The Return of the Ancient Ones! Then drop into “once-upon-a-time” land to visit a dragonslayer who doesn’t know what a dragon looks like, where it lives, or how to slay it. It’s time to hit the hammock and get this summer started!

http://garycaplan.org/book/

Noir mystery meets the Internet age—Review of “For Blood or Money”

2011-06-16T06:40:00.001-07:00

I’m both elated and humbled after receiving this review of For Blood or Money on Amazon this week. I’ve no idea who the reviewer is, but I’ve become a fan of his! This is what “bobwriter” had to say:

Noir mystery meets the internet age

This quirky private detective yarn 'For Blood or Money' deftly combines the hard-boiled gumshoe prototypes like Sam Spade and Nero Wolfe with a cutting edge cyber-tech sleuth.

Dag Hamar is a detective with a problem, and while I won't spoil the fun with a recitation of the plot points, this book has everything a mystery-thriller needs. Plot twists, trusty sidekicks, beautiful dames, unexpected complications and a nice mix of old-school P.I. melded with high-tech gadgets, dead bodies and a race to the finish line make this very readable and highly recommended.

He honors language and ends with a graceful poignancy that has me thinking about it weeks later. Given how many books I read, one that lingers as his does is a rare and special treat.

An author is always happy to receive a positive review, and when it is as well-written as this one, it is a double pleasure. Thank you “bobwriter”. http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Money-Nathan-Everett/product-reviews/098172499X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Separating the unwritten from the unspoken

2011-06-11T07:46:00.001-07:00

I’ve had lots to write about—not to blog about—this week. I guess in some ways I associate the blog with what I say, not what I write. Like many blogs I read, mine is often filled with spontaneous words that come out more like a conversation; and, like this post, often don’t know where they are going until they arrive.

By comparison, I wrote a combination letter to my daughter and five-minute talk for Father’s Day. (Sorry, you can’t read it until I present it next Sunday at NUUC.) I’ve known for weeks that I’d be giving the talk and was completely at a loss as to what I would speak about. The idea came to me a few days ago. It had only a theme. Sometime Thursday, I added a point. When I walked the dogs yesterday (about 45 minutes to the coffee shop and back), I structured the whole piece in my mind. When I got home I had six points, an organizational flow, and a couple of key phrases. I started to write.

It took two hours to generate the 895 words of “Promises to my Graduating Senior.” I shared it with my wife for editing. We both cried through it. I don’t know how I’ll get through speaking it in church.

I’ve written the unspoken.

On a separate subject, I wrote the first draft of my article for Line Zero magazine, which is due by Wednesday. “Pre-Release Marketing 101” started out with a series of blog posts I wrote about launching a book. Conceptually, I had 10 things to say. But my 2,500-word article doesn’t allow for long lists like that. (I learned that last time.) I winnowed it down to just four things. Each of those four things could have been a 2,500-word article. But a lot of that will go unwritten because it is really what I would say if I were presenting the subject.

The spoken goes unwritten.

If any of this makes sense, then you are probably reading what I am thinking and not what I’ve said. But that’s a different subject.

Making a cover with lead type

2011-06-05T09:22:00.001-07:00

I’m pretty pleased with the cover art for The Gutenberg Rubric, as I’ve already mentioned. But I thought some people might be interested in the process we used to create it. After all, there aren’t all that many people who have access to a print shop, and I have an obligation to share the experience! So here’s a step by step.

I became pretty familiar with all the tiny bits of lead that would be used for spacing. The first picture are just spaces in various type sizes. Those are used within the line to make it come out even and to add space between words or characters. There was also a little box of brass in the point size I was using. The brass spacers are only one point thick. The lead spacers ranged from a square em down to an en, 4 em, and thin space. The second picture is the lead that goes between the lines of type. I set the title solid, but added lead between the author and the title.

This is the coolest part about setting type. I put the letters in the composing stick, setting them from right to left and adding spacers at the end of each line to make a perfect 25 pica line. There is a little nick on the front edge of each type bit, so you can feel whether you have the letters all right side up. Not so difficult with this size type (36 point Artcraft titling caps. The author’s name was set in Alternate Gothic No. 1 at 30 points.

Dan Shafer, a member of the Seattle Center for Book Arts and instructor in book arts at Cornish College for the Arts, stepped in to tie the type so it wouldn’t shift when we put it on the press. Because it was such a small job, we didn’t lock it up with furniture all around it when we put it in the tray. Dan just inked the type and we were ready to roll.

After several test pages, we were able to pull a page that was clean and hold it in position with clips until I could get a good picture for the cover. We experimented with different lighting conditions, paper stocks, and lens openings until I got one that I felt was usable.

And from that we get the final artwork for the cover. I tried various alignments and actually have pictures in which the type lines up almost perfectly horizontal on the page, but I like the dynamics of this shot the best. (It wraps around the spine and back cover as well!)

I’ve always been a big fan of photographic covers on most adult fiction, but also have had a hard rule that the photo would not include the type. Now I’m breaking that rule, but to make sure that the type is clean and clear on the cover, I did a little black enhancement in Photoshop being careful not to affect the letterpress edge of the characters.

The Gutenberg Rubric will be released in July.

The Gutenberg Rubric to be released in July

2011-05-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

Today, Nathan Everett and NWE Signatures announce the upcoming release of the 2010 PNWA award-winning thriller, The Gutenberg Rubric in July 2011.

“It seems like this has been a long time coming, but at the same time it has happened so quickly,” Everett said. “It’s a book that came from my love of print history and a fascination with Gutenberg that started when I visited the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany in the early 90s.”

Just months before the completion of the famous Bible that bears his name, Gutenberg was sued by his financial partner for diverting funds to a secret project. When Gutenberg would not share the project, the courts awarded the entire Bible printing business to Johan Fust, leaving Gutenberg with nothing but his secret.

Modern-day rare book librarians Madeline Zayne and Keith Drucker are unlikely heroes crossing the U.S. and Europe to track down the legendary tome Gutenberg was working on. When found, it proves to be an encoded rubric that reveals the final resting place of the Library of Alexandria, hidden by its protectors 2,000 years ago. Greed, fear, biblio-terrorism, and Homeland Security stand between the lovers and the discovery of the world’s greatest collection of ancient documents.

Once inside the library, however, will Keith and Maddie survive to reveal the treasure to the world, or share the tomb of an ancient king?

A signed galley proof of the book is being offered as a prize for #ArmchairBEA this week and eBook review copies will be available early in July. Contact Nathan Everett at wayzgoose@comcast.net to request a review copy or to suggest venues for the book tour in September 2011.

#ArmchairBEA—The Book Industry’s Premier Virtual Event

2011-05-23T07:30:00.001-07:00

Book Expo America (BEA) is the number one industry event for the publishing industry in the United States. It is where publishers announce their upcoming season of books and try to get the hype built. Reviewers, readers, bookstores, distributors, and authors go to the convention at Javits Center in NYC to collect dozens of pre-release and released books (free samples), to make buying decisions, and to compete for a minute of glory on one of the platforms where readings, interviews, technology demonstrations (age of eBooks), and other hype is displayed with high hopes for the future.

I’ve been privileged to attend BEA and be a presenter there in the past. But this year, circumstances prevent my being in NYC. So I’m one of the many who will participate virtually through ArmchairBEA. Organized over the past couple of years as book bloggers and publishers cooperate together through Twitter and blogs, ArmchairBEA has become the book industry’s premier virtual event.

Today, we introduce ourselves. Here goes:

I’m Nathan, AKA Wayzgoose.

Blog address is Writer’s Cramp: http://wayzgoose.livejournal.com/

Websites: http://longtalepress.com and http://nwesignatures.com

Twitter: @wayzgoose

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wayzgoose (mention ArmchairBEA in friend request)

In 140 Characters: Author, Publisher, Book & eBook designer. Working in the virtual world. Living in the real world.

If you could put one book in the hands of everyone you come in contact with, what would it be and why?
Well, that’s easy, it would be my book. Why? Because I love to tell stories and it is so much better when someone is listening.

What book are you looking forward to reading the most in 2011?
Mary Doria Russell’s new offering, Doc. I’ve long appreciated Ms. Russell’s work and after hearing her speak last week, I can hardly wait for my copy to arrive!

If you could have lunch with any author, living or not, who would it be and where/what would you eat?
When it comes down to it, I’m really not that much of a Fanboy when it comes to specific authors. But I think that I’d enjoy a meal with Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries). I imagine that we would eat at a teashop or pub near Oxford where some of my favorites are set. Ms. Sayers helped introduce me to the concept of reading for pleasure—something that I hadn’t known in my youth.

Giveaways: Officially, tomorrow is Giveaway day, but they start today. Join ArmchairBEA and you will automatically be eligible to receive a free ePUB eBook of Steven George & The Dragon. That’s my promo this week. (Of course, there will be other giveaways from both Long Tale Press and NWE Signatures, including an ARC of my newest thriller, The Gutenberg Rubric!)

99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing on the Internet

2011-05-11T07:24:00.001-07:00

One of the disadvantages of living in your own fantasy world is thinking that what you imagined is what really happened. For example, I imagined that I had posted this blog yesterday in support of Peggy McColl’s new book, but my mind played a trick on me and I found it still on my desk. I think I need to see what is under it. There may be all kinds of things I imagined I told you!

If you have a product or service you’d like to sell, a book you’ll soon release, or a passion you’d like to turn into a business, 99 Things you Wish you Knew Before Marketing on the Internet was written for you! It certainly was for me.

New York Times Bestselling Author Peggy McColl has the tried and true formula to propel your message through the virtual world and land you at your rightful place amongst the stars.

99 Things you Wish you Knew Before Marketing on the Internet makes the daunting task of marketing your product online, a straight forward step by step process so that you, too, can enjoy the same success Peggy has realized in her own life. With collaborator Judy O’Biern, President of Hasmark Service, Peggy gives you a ‘behind the curtain’ peak inside two of the brightest minds in online marketing today.

http://peggys99things.com/

I wrote about Hasmark and partner launches a few days ago. (Lessons from the Launch-Pad—Partnering) Frankly, I wish I’d read Peggy’s book before I launched Steven George & The Dragon!

If you act now, you’ll be entered to win one of three amazing prizes. And you’ll have free access to a valuable collection of bonus gifts from top authors like Arielle Ford, Eldon Taylor, Deborah King and Caroline Sutherland.

http://peggys99things.com/

“One of the best things you can do for yourself and your business, if you want to succeed, is to study this book!” – John Assaraf, New York Times Best-selling author of “The Answer and Having it All”

99 Things you Wish you Knew Before Marketing on the Internet was written by the best so it’s got to be good!

http://peggys99things.com/

This is my first partner launch of a book—a subject that is close to my heart—and I managed to not get it quite right. But you can help redeem my failing memory by visiting Peggy’s site and taking a look at what she has to say. There are going to be more lessons from the launch-pad soon!

The Hard Launch—What I Learned from The Dragon

2011-04-28T08:16:00.001-07:00

(This article is inspired by a blog post by Joel Friedlander, a book designer and independent publisher in Marin Co. CA. You can read his post at Your Book Launch: Soft or Hard? I’ll be referring to Joel’s post often in the next few posts.)

I discovered a lot about book launches when I released Steven George & The Dragon on March 26. Part of what I discovered was how exhausting and in many ways stressful launching an independently published book can be. Some of the lessons I learned are worth passing on. When compared with the comments Joel makes about the differences in soft and hard launches, these thoughts might help others to get it right. For the sake of our reference, I’ll define hard launch as any book release that is tied to a specific date and appearance of the author with a book-signing and sales all targeted to that rocket the numbers of books sold on that one day.

Lesson 1: It all starts way ahead of the book. If you are doing a hard launch, one of the things you have to do is get you list of potential buyers put together. Potential buyers are: a) People in your target reading market, b) People who buy books for your target reading market, c) People who review books for your target reading market, and d) Everyone else that you know or have met or can figure out a way to get an email address for. The key element here is that you need to build a list of people you can invite to your launch and encourage to buy your book. Don’t underestimate the power of selling to friends and relatives. They all want to see you succeed. And, you’ve been attending writers’ conferences, workshops, readings, book clubs, job socials, and completely unrelated events for business or pleasure. If a person has given you a business card, they are on your list. Goal: No less than 500 names and email addresses, at least half of which must be local and in reach of your launch event. Success: I sent only 430 invitations to my launch party for Steven George & The Dragon. Nearly 70 people showed up for the launch.

Lesson 2: Inspire people to buy the book before it is released. This is really tough. Why would anyone come to your website and buy a book that isn’t released yet? Find a cause that you can couple with that will drive sales of your book. Contribute the initial sales or the a percentage of it to a favorite charity, release the book at a church or charitable event that benefits from the release, offer a pre-release discounted book price, or whatever you can do to encourage people to buy that book before it is released. This is almost impossible to do if Amazon is fulfilling your orders, but if you are handling sales from your own website, you can offer any incentive you want. Goal: 100 sales confirmed and paid before you launch. Success: In spite of offering to split the gross profits from advance sales of Steven George & The Dragon with Room to Read, an organization I have supported for many years, I sold only three copies through the website in advance. Many people told me they were waiting to buy the book at the release party. I extended the donation offer through the release party and was able to donate over $200 to Room to Read.

Lesson 3: Have a back-up marketing plan in place. What happens after the launch? I had great sales at my launch party, including many people who bought Steven George & The Dragon, For Blood or Money, and even my charity cookbook Feeding the Board! Over 70 sales that night. It was a great launch. But Amazon shows no sales since that date on any of the books in any of their versions. I’ve sold a modest number of books at a couple of other events at which I spoke, but was so focused on my one big night that now I’m scrambling to create momentum again and find myself weeks (maybe months) behind the curve.

These three lessons are heavily influencing the plans for my next launch in July. I’ll be exploring the lessons learned and the plans for the next launch over the next few posts. In the meantime, help with the title and cover of my next book by taking the 90-second survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HK2D2NP. The responses I’ve received so far are already influencing my decisions on how to launch the new book. Join in and enter to win a pre-release copy of the book now!

The Origins of My Love Affair with Books

2011-04-19T09:28:00.001-07:00

Writers are joining the pseudo MEME started by Joe Beernink and Jason Black. I was so inspired by reading these two posts that I have to jump in and add my own story to the collection.

I have three older sisters (by 10 or more years), so when I came along our house was already full of books. I remember odd bits of storybooks, but very little specific about them. The Velveteen Rabbit was on the shelf as was some book I remember as being particularly intriguing with “Peter” in the title. But I don’t remember much more than the cover. The first book I remember poring over was the fascinating History of the New World—one of my sisters’ textbooks. There were pictures with lengthy captions, and that is what I read. I might have been 7.

But the real influence on my love was from two books. The first, a literary mystery by Celia Fremlin titled The Hours Before Dawn. It won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1960. It was the first book I remember reading because I chose to read it. No one told me I had to. It was way above my reading and maturity level and was a subject (sleep deprived mother afraid she is becoming psychotic) with which I had no familiarity. I remember, though, being completely caught up in the atmosphere and feeling of the story. I could imagine what it must feel like going for hours without sleep and seeing things that might or might not have been there. And then the fire. The boarder leaping from the window thinking she had stolen the baby and dying with an empty bundle of blankets in her arms. Vindication for the mother. I have not read that book in 40 years, but the imagery is still fresh in my mind. I thought that if I ever wrote a book I would want to make people feel the way that book made me feel. I was 12 years old. The book was shelved right next to Saul Bellow’s Herzog which I started and put down numerous times. The two books, however, were so closely associated in my mind that until I looked it up I thought Bellow had written The Hours Before Dawn!

The other book that was important to me is still within five feet of where I’m sitting. It is a book of poetry titled simply The Poems of Robert Browning. published first in 1896 by Thomas Y. Crowell, this is a 1924 edition with a biographical sketch by Charlotte Porter. It was my father’s—one of a dozen books of poetry that he kept. Once again, the poetry was way above my head when I first read it. I suffered through piecing the story together of “How they brought the news from Ghent to Aix.” But the romantic in my heart can still quote the opening stanza of “Cristina.”

She should never have looked at me if she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty … men, you call such, I suppose … she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found them:
But I’m not so, and she knew it when she fixed me, glancing round them.

Yes, I loved the language and the poetry—the complexity of the structure that taught me that the poem was not about the rhyme. But none of that was what drew me to this volume. This book is so much more. The cover, tattered and the edged chewed by an unknown rodent is a soft brown suede/leather. The front is tooled with an ornate pastoral scene and in a banner over the top in simple gold embossed letters are the words “Robt. Browning.” That’s all. No title of the work. The title mentioned above appears on the title page inside. No, picking up this book was like picking up the secret journal—the life—of a single man who was embodied in this book.

Inside, marbled bookpaper lines the cover and flyleaf. It is so tattered now that you can see the mesh that was used to glue the sewn pages together at the spine. After two blank pages, you find an engraving of Browning with a tissue cover paper that is printed with the words “Robert Browning at 77, 1889 (His last photograph).” The paper on which the body of the book is printed is almost as thin as Bible paper, but coarser in texture. The typesetting of the foreword and biographical sketch is cramped and occasionally the letters are broken. The poetry, however, has generous margins preserving the poet’s line length and phrasing except in the very wordy lines like those of “Cristina.”

I fell in love with the book, not the wonderful words within it. It was joined on my shelf by other works from my father’s library and not a few that I collected myself. Burns, Tennyson, Milton, even Elbert Hubbard! All in soft leather or deer hide covers with intricate tooling. All dating from about 1880 to 1930. All handset with lead type and printed a page at a time on small presses.

I didn’t really start reading for pleasure until I read The Hobbit in 1967. But my love of books was already firmly ingrained. Books contained the essence of the author, wrapped in elegance and art. Meant to be held, admired, and cooed over like a lover in your embrace.

Such am I: the secret’s mine now! She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul’s mine: and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life’s remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come next life quickly! This world’s use will have been ended.

From Jason: I loved Joe Beernink’s blog on this subject so much I’m writing this response. I think it ought to become a meme among us writer-types. So to anyone reading this, I’ll make you this deal: post your own reaction on your blog, post a comment here with a link to your blog, and I’ll do my best to drive readers your way through my own social media network. Please share. Even if you don’t have a blog, give us your formative book experiences in the comments. I’d love to hear other people’s stories of how their literary love affairs began.

And so shall I.

That Looks Self-Published—Common Mistakes

2011-04-13T07:11:00.001-07:00

Here’s a sneak peek at my article in Line Zero magazine coming out next week. While the most common complaints about self-published work reported by readers is editorial (poor writing, editing, proofreading), there are distinct production and design issues that make a book look amateurish. Here’s what I have to say about those:

Flat, drawn cover art and bland cover typography. Photo art on covers sells books. Only in instances where the book is targeted to younger readers or has fantasy artwork should the cover not be photographic.
Times or Times New Roman. Using default computer typefaces screams “Amateur!” At the same time, the typeface shouldn’t be different for the sake of being unusual. Select an appropriate, readable typeface. Popular professional typefaces include Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Book Antiqua. Good san serif faces include Franklin Gothic, Helvetica, and Frutiger (not Arial or Calibri).
Double spaces after punctuation and between paragraphs. You have entered the world of professional book typesetting, not blogs, web pages and software. The correct convention for spacing is single spaces after punctuation and first lines of paragraphs indented with no additional space between.
Typographer’s punctuation. While most word processing and layout programs automatically convert quotation marks to “curly quotes,” it is not uncommon to see self-published works produced with typewriter quotes (") and apostrophes and double hyphens for em-dashes (—). Use the proper symbol for ellipses (…), not three periods.
Expanded spaces in justified text. Use layout software that will maintain visually consistent spacing between words and letters rather than just spreading the space between words to get even line lengths. Good dictionary-based hyphenation is an aid to well-justified text. Also monitor widow and orphan controls to make sure that the bottom margin of text is consistent throughout the book and does not change in order to prevent single lines at top and bottom of pages.
Rough or flimsy paper. Unless you are making a reputation for yourself in “pulp” fiction, your book should be printed on 60# white paper or better. Printing on coarse, low-grade, or flimsy paper stock will make your book look cheap and uncared for.
Oddly sized book. While bookstore shelves are slowly filling with books in more and more sizes, the standard for trade paperbacks continues to be 6x9 inches, and for mass market paperbacks 4.25x7 inches.

You can read more about the mechanics of publishing in the new issue of Line Zero and see pictures illustrating a couple of common problems in both print and eBooks. I’ll also be speaking on this subject Thursday, April 21, at the PNWA Monthly Meeting in Bellevue. (http://www.pnwa.org)

Self-publishing or Independent Publishing—What’s the Difference?

2011-04-11T07:28:00.001-07:00

I’m not attempting to give a definitive answer to this question. It wasn’t even a debate five years ago. It’s been brought to the forefront by the rise of online book sales, print-on-demand, eBooks, and enabling technology. There are those who still cling to the absolute thesis that there is no difference. If you publish your own work you are a self-publisher no matter what you call yourself. And by that narrow definition, I have to agree. But fundamentally, I believe a difference is evolving and I’d like to contribute to the debate even if I can’t openly declare a winner.

Self-publishing is a long and honorable tradition. John James Audubon self-published his magnificent volume of The Birds of North America in 1838, producing one of the most luxurious and respected volumes ever seen. Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855. Ben Franklin, using the pen name Richard Saunders, published Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1732. In congress, Franklin was often accused of quoting himself. Ernest Hemingway self-published his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems in 1923. The list goes on, now including best selling authors J.A. Konrath, Cory Doctorow, and recently Barry Eisler who reportedly turned down a $500k advance to self-publish his newest work. (Read a dialog with J.A. Konrath and Barry Eisler at http://bit.ly/gTWNrd.

But the fairytale stories of these authors pales next to the more common story. Who ever heard of The Journey Through the Forest by Daphne Wright, Ontario Lacus by J. Matthew Neal, Buddha’s Thunderbolt by Jacob Asher Michael, or Steven George & The Dragon by Nathan Everett? These books haven’t exactly hit the best seller list or made the authors rich. But that doesn’t say anything about the quality of the book or its production. Any of those books might be the best read you’ve ever encountered. (Can’t say. I’ve only read one of them!)

So, self-publish or independent publish. It can’t be determined based on who the author is, their successful book sales, or the quality of the writing. So what makes the difference?

I submit that the difference is a business decision. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t want to publish things. I self-published a little chapbook called “The Book of Wesley” back in 1983. My friend Don still quotes it to me. It was carefully composed on a Selectric typewriter, the pages imposed 4-up on 8.5x11 inch paper, and saddle-stitch bound with a trim-size of 4.125x2.625 inches. If you don’t know what composition, imposition, binding, and trim-size are, chances are you are not an independent publisher. Those are part of the language of publishing and if you are in the business of publishing, you have to learn the language.

There are six distinct job areas in publishing and they overlap significantly when you are doing it all yourself.

Content
Management
Creative
Production
Marketing
Distribution

A self-publisher is focused on—in fact, consumed by—content. After all, if it weren’t for the content none of the rest of this would exist, right? But the fact is that there comes a time when you have to set the content aside and declare it finished. From that point on, the publishing work begins. A self-publisher will spend as little time and effort on the next five areas as possible, even going back to content in order to avoid dealing with another area. She will upload her content to an eBook or POD publisher and move on to the next writing project, wondering why week after week there are no sales reported.

An independent publisher first and foremost takes on the role of management. If you were doing legacy publishing, that’s what your editor would do. The term editor in today’s industry doesn’t really have much to do with proofreading your book, correcting grammar, or even counseling you on your story arc. The editor manages all the pieces of getting a book to the public. The editor will take input from marketing to determine marketability of the book, pricing, promotion, and title of the book. The editor will manage the schedule for printing, release, and promotion. The editor will make sure the author’s work is given the best chance for success that the publisher can afford.

You thought that “creative” applied to the work you did as an author. But in the publishing world, creative is the design and artwork for your book. What is the best look for the cover? How does it compare to other books that might be shelved near your book? What is the best typographic treatment for your content and market? What is the best look for margins and line-spacing? How should chapters be headed? Today, the creative process has to cover both print and electronic versions of the book.

Then the book has to actually be produced. Putting your precious text into a layout is no trivial matter. Following the designer’s specifications, the production person will need to control page and line breaks, problem spacing, insertion of illustrations or graphics in the right places, and printing parameters, eBook readers, and bindery limitations.

Once the book is complete, it has to be distributed. If there is no plan and execution of the distribution process, books will sit gathering dust and mold in the garage, or will never be printed by the POD service. Distribution is the art of putting the book in front of potential buyers.

I didn’t skip marketing because it is unimportant, but rather because it will permeate every activity listed above. Market research will show where the book should be shelved, what its title should be, how its cover should be designed, what the price should be, where it should be sold, and how to reach its market. It will set the schedule for readings, author appearances, interviews, and publicity. It will determine what the website looks like, who promotes the book, and who will be promoted alongside the book.

Of course, one person doesn’t have to do all of the above. There really aren’t that many authors who can design and produce a decent book. But as the manager of the process, the independent publisher has to be able to acquire the right talent and pay for it so that the book has the best possible chance of success. I suggest that the independent publisher is one that has embraced the totality of the publishing process. The self-publisher is one who does not really understand what publishing is all about, but just wants to see their content in print (or eBook).

Congratulations! You're Pregnant!

2011-04-05T07:12:00.001-07:00

No, that’s not news from my family. That’s you as an unpublished author of a beautiful new book that you’ve just labeled “finished.” I don’t mean finished as in you just got done with NaNoWriMo; I mean finished as in you’ve edited and revised and reworked and rewritten to the point that you know you have a future best seller and all you need now is a million dollar advance. You’ve printed a copy of your book on clean white paper and lovingly and tenderly tucked it into a box marked “for submission.”

Well, writing that little gem and the afterglow that resulted when you wrote your little version of “happily ever after” was the easy part.

My new guide to independent publishing will show you exactly what to expect over the next nine months as you get ready to push that little baby out into the big wide world.

I’ll be using a few of my Journal posts in the next few months to explore some of the issues and procedures for moving your book from “finished” to “published.” I’ve just completed the process myself with Steven George & The Dragon, so both the successes and the failures are fresh in mind. I’ll even be speaking on the subject at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) monthly meeting on April 21 at Chinook Middle School at 7:00 p.m., then again on a panel at the summer writer’s conference.

The tentative title is “Writing was the Easy Part: A guide to becoming an Independent Publisher.” I’d love to hear what you think of it and what questions you wish someone would answer about the publishing process.

Let me know!

Need a Killer Title

2011-03-31T08:46:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow starts Script Frenzy, the April version of NaNoWriMo that promotes film, stage, and graphic novel scripts. I participated last year and generated a full two-act stage adaptation of my recently released novel, Steven George & The Dragon. Now I’m ready to try my hand at a film script. Here’s the tagline:

Cyber-sleuth Dag Hamar takes to the streets when he discovers a link between stolen identities and real women abducted from the streets of Seattle.

It’s a younger look at the hero of my book For Blood or Money, when he was just getting into computer forensics. Think “Taken” with an actual human as the protagonist instead of a superspy (and a story-line). It’s packed with action that Dag is completely unequipped for. The world he knows is inside the gray box of his computer, but the world he is thrust into runs from executive board rooms to the violent depths of human trafficking and focuses on the intersection of the two.

My working title “No Escape Key,” is frankly boring. I wouldn’t see a movie with that title, so why would I expect anyone else to. I liked the fact that it implied a world where the conventions of the computer that Dag is used to no longer work. And that there was no way out of it. But it needs something that actually sounds interesting.

I’m taking suggestions. Got any?

Post-Opening Euphoria

2011-03-26T13:19:00.001-07:00

I’ve experienced it in the theatre on many occasions. You slave over the scenery, lighting, sound, action, and publicity. Three hours before opening curtain, when you are getting into makeup and costume, warming up your voice, running a hair dryer on places where the paint is still wet, you hear that the house is “small.” But it is opening night and the rip in your tights, the door that won’t open, the sudden allergic reaction to spirit gum, can’t bring you down from the excitement you feel. “Overture. Curtain. Lights. This is it: the night of nights.”

The curtain opens. The house is much bigger than you were led to believe. Your mother (or her ghost) is sitting in the front row. The energy you get back from the audience laughing, applauding, even weeping, propels you to the top of your game and before you realize it started, the final curtain comes down and you take a bow.

That was last night and the launch of Steven George & The Dragon at Jitters. The house was literally packed. As many as 65 people were buying books, sipping coffee, standing in line for my autograph, and listening enthusiastically as I read passages from the new book.

Then everyone was gone. We packed the car. Lissi vacuumed the floors and Maggie cleaned up the espresso machine. The DW and I left and realized we hadn’t eaten yet, so stopped at Red Robin for a late burger & fries. Then it was home. We’re still here, looking at the remaining unsold books, trying to reconcile the reports of credit cards and cashbox with the inventory. And asking the big question that hits after every opening; Now what?

Does selling more than our goal last night make me a famous author? Will royalties, movie contracts, and bids for my next book come rolling in? Will I finally get a decent night’s sleep tonight? Any of these would be fine.

In theatre, you face a closing curtain. You start rehearsing the next show. With publishing, you start looking for another audience. A book has to have a run of more than one night, and you need an audience that doesn’t share your last name (literally or figuratively). You need Amazon sales and Barnes & Noble. You need to see the hits on your website and plan the next reading. As the famous title says, you need to “get your act together and take it on the road.”

But for today—just today, mind you—it is okay to enjoy the euphoria and glow of that opening night.

Day of the Dragon

2011-03-25T09:17:00.001-07:00

This is it! Steven George & The Dragon is now officially released!

Steven George has known since his earliest memories that he would be his village’s dragonslayer. He has had the best education the people of the village could give him. He learned from the village elder, the hunter, the shaman, and the wise woman. As a young man, he is as ready as his village can make him.

When at last he is sent to slay the fearsome beast, Steven realizes he doesn’t know what a dragon looks like, exactly where it lives, or how to slay it! But Steven’s village has fostered the talent of telling tales. Steven trades once-upon-a times with a melon farmer, a village idiot, a tinker, a woodcutter, a knight, a merchant, a thief, and a gypsy. Each remarkable story leads him a step closer to understanding the true nature of his quest and that all that looks like a dragon is not a dragon.

Lost, robbed, and in despair, Steven finally discovers that all roads lead to the dragon, but a dragon may not look like a dragon!

Steven George & The Dragon is available in paperback and non-encrypted ePUB eBook from http://stngeorge.com.

Available for NOOKbook from Barnes & Noble.

Available for Kindle eBook from Amazon.com.

Available in paperback from Amazon.com.

Available in paperback from CreateSpace.com.

Release party open house at Jitters Coffee in Redmond from 5:30-8:00 with readings at 6:00 and 7:00. Come on over!

Pass the word. Today we meet the dragon!

What’s a deluxe PDF eBook?

2011-03-23T07:01:00.001-07:00

I’ve been experimenting with eBooks for ten years now. I love the industry standard ePUB format and am committed to producing all books I publish in both that and Kindle versions. But sometimes the vision for a written work exceeds the technology that is available. Let’s face it, I miss big fat leather-bound books with letterpress type and hand illuminated illustrations.

Okay. I never actually lived in an era of that kind of book, but I have some of them and they are cool. I imagine my words on those soft textured pages, being pored over by my inner child discovering a world outside the confines of my little log cabin.

Well, no one I know can afford to produce that kind of a book. They aren’t practical. Would cost too much to buy. Shoot! We don’t even have coffee tables to put them on anymore! But…

We do have the miracle of computers, and as an artist I’m able to realize my dream in pixels instead of paper. That’s where PDF comes in. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with that file format for years. Right now, I think I can use it to the best possible effect in showing people what my inner vision of my book looks like. My intent is to produce a deluxe PDF version of the book on a CD-ROM that will play on your computer. Yes, I know that isn’t the greatest reading environment in the world, but it is a great display environment for artwork. I’ve started by producing a test book, just 16 pages total. Here’s a picture from inside.

Now doesn’t that look like something you’d like to read? Turn the pages. Smell the musty odor of old paper?

It’s going to take longer to produce an entire book if I take the care I’ve taken with this sample. So, I’ve taken the buy button off my website for that particular edition. But I do have the sample available and would love your comments on it. You can click the link at Steven George & The Dragon titled “What the Sergeant Didn’t See” in the bottom right corner of the page. This is a story that doesn’t appear in the book, so you get a bonus story as well as the cool deluxe layout. You can go straight to the PDF with this link: What the Sergeant Didn’t See.

What could be better? Free story. Beautiful book. New concept. Let me know what you think.

Writing Was the Easy Part

2011-03-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

Fortunately, I knew what I was getting into when I started this project. I’ve been working in publishing for 30 years in one aspect or another and I specialized in electronic layout, design, and production of documents. I designed and produced several magazines in the 80s, training manuals and curriculum in the 90s, and both paper and electronic books in the 00s. My designs and production won prepress, printing industry, and technical communication awards and I traveled the country converting traditional publishers to desktop technology. Yes, I have credentials when it comes to the publishing process.

But even I was surprised by the time and commitment it took to publish my own book. Sure, I’ve published other people’s books and even my own through a publishing company where there were other people to depend on for editorial and marketing services. But in becoming an independent publisher, I suddenly realized that writing was the easy part.

I can sit at my computer and generate a thousand good words at a sitting (out of 5,000). The story ideas flow so fast that I keep a file of opening lines and chapters for works I want to pick up later. I have a publishing schedule of completed works that goes for the next five years. Editing, designing, laying out, and producing those works takes months.

Take, for example, editing. Steven George & The Dragon went through several editorial passes after I had finished rewriting the book to my own satisfaction and before it was ready to lay out. In a traditional publishing house, the book would have been read by a professional editor who would compare it to other books of a similar nature currently on the shelves. She would be an expert in young adult literature and would recommend changes based on a tightly defined target market. When I wrote Steven George & The Dragon, I didn’t even realize it was a young adult novel. It was my first independent beta reader, Katy, who told me precisely where it would be shelved in a bookstore. Jason, the book doctor, reviewed the “finished” draft two years ago and made substantive suggestions, largely focusing on story arc and transitions. Michele, the copy editor, sought out typos, missing punctuation, bad or confusing sentence structure, and places where words were poorly chosen. And finally, when I thought I was ready to design the book and lay it out, I sent it out to half a dozen beta readers, including some in my target market. They gave me feedback on what was missing or confusing, additional missing punctuation, and words that were too hard or unfamiliar.

I had to manage that process myself with this book. A staff editor might have used the same processes that I did, but when I finished it would have the validation of an independent third party. I guess that means I could have said someone else was responsible and relieved myself of the onus of the final say. But it all rests on my head now.

I’ll be writing more about the production process in the future, including a May article in Line Zero magazine and a presentation at the PNWA members meeting on April 21.

But I still say, writing was the easy part!

Changing Hats, Again

2011-03-14T09:01:00.001-07:00

I wear a lot of different hats, both literally and figuratively. This month, for example, I’m wearing my chef’s hat a lot. I’m promoting the sale of my cookbook at Studio East’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain,” but I’m also cooking for some pretty big groups. I had 14 men over for breakfast earlier this month and served baked apple-cinnamon French toast. That went over big. Last Friday, I did both Greek pastitsio and baklava for a hundred people at the gala opening of “Rain.” This coming Saturday I’m doing Umbrian pasta sauce for 100 at Northlake UU Church. And then there is the release party for Steven George & The Dragon coming up on the 25th and I think I’ll be serving baklava at that.

But I have hats of almost every shape and style for different occasions. Andrew once commented that I seemed to have a hat to go with every outfit I have (and they aren’t all black!). Jo commented that I was so well coordinated with my two dogs when I wear a black jacket (Lucy) and a golden tan hat (Bliss). I didn’t actually buy the hats to go with the various sport coats or jackets or dogs. I bought the hats because I “didn’t have one like that.” That just happened to leave me with a hat for all seasons.

So it was natural to have a hat as one of the central characters in Steven George & The Dragon. It is a sheepskin hat, modeled in my mind after a kaciula hat from Eastern Europe. The idea of decorating the hat with feathers, snakeskin, a talisman, and a chicken bone came from our NaNoWriMo municipal liaison, Mandrina. She challenged everyone to include a duck that sat on the head and made a strange sound in our novels that year. And thus came the Implausible Hat. Steven includes something about the hat in each of the stories that he tells, after the fashion of “country people who tell fantastic tales of the adventures of various items of clothing,” as the thief tells his guests. I keep thinking that I should wear such a hat when I read from the book at the release party.

Hmmm. I don’t have one like that!

Changing the name of my office

2011-03-10T09:08:00.001-08:00

In honor of the release of Steven George & The Dragon, I’m changing the name of my office. Here’s how it came about in the first place.

A few years ago, my wife and daughter shared a small office in my basement that they dubbed The Wolf Lair. I had the larger office/storage room next door. They called it The Wolf Lair because our big greyhound, Val, shared the office with them.

About the time I was beginning to conceive the idea for Steven George, I was sitting in a lobby wearing my greyhound sweatshirt (Hundus Speediensus: Latin for Fast Dawg) when I spotted a little girl about 4, I’d guess, who seemed fascinated by the stylized picture of the greyhound on it. I attempted to engage her, asking whether she had a dog and telling her about my greyhound. Finally, she pointed at the shirt and said simply, “I thought it was a dragon.”

Thus was born the idea of a dragonslayer who really didn’t know what a dragon looked like, where it lived, or how to slay it.

We changed around our offices to accommodate my teen daughter’s life and she got my office as a living suite. I got The Wolf Lair and my wife moved her office upstairs to the guest room. Sadly, Val passed away and now there are two more greyhounds taking grudging turns lying in my office. But every time I see them I think, “I thought it was a dragon.”

So, in honor of Lucy, Bliss, and Val, and the release of Steven George and The Dragon, I’m officially renaming the office, The Dragon’s Cave.

You can decide for yourself it it refers to the dogs or me.

The Prequel Timeline Dilemma

2011-03-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

When I wrote the original draft of For Blood or Money, all the action took place in 30 days. The sequel, Municipal Blondes, took place in the next 30 days, and this year I wrote a second sequel, Stocks & Bondage, that took place on the following 30 days. That started five years ago. The novel I just finished took place four years ago according to this timeline. Sue Grafton has done this extraordinarily well with the Kinsey Milhone alphabet novels. They started years ago and the timeline has remained consistent. No cell phones clutter Kinsey’s world.

But times—and technology—change, and I find myself wanting to challenge my hero with today’s tech instead of what was available four years ago. And this problem is multiplied when I consider writing a prequel to For Blood or Money that follows Dag Hamar soon after he has become a computer forensics detective. In the timeline of that world, strictly speaking, the book would take place in the late 80s or early 90s. But that seems so dated.

So, the question is whether to write according to the strict timeline of the first story (which by the way, has no overwhelming construct of dateable tech and holds together well as a “contemporary” piece rather than a “period” piece) and deal only with the world as he would have seen it in the 90s, or do I simply write in the moment for each book I develop. I’m thinking the latter is the right course for Dag as he deals with a case of stolen identity and possible human trafficking. The tentative title is “No Escape Key” and I expect to develop it as a screenplay first and a novel later in the year.

Any suggestions?

Step 37: Panic!

2011-03-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

I’m reminded of Hemingway’s supposed comment that “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” When I hear about people in awe that someone wrote a book, I have to say to myself, “That was the easy part.” I wrote Steven George & The Dragon in 30 days in 2007. I edited it for two years. But even that was comparably easy.

It was (is) putting the book through the publishing process that was (is) hard. I’m not sure it will be easier with the next book, either. I wrote an article in the current issue of Line Zero magazine titled “10 Reasons You Should Become an Indi Publisher.” I decided to validate my reasons against a live project. So, I’ve been documenting the process with Steven George & The Dragon. Great story, publication ready manuscript, care for design. Check check check. Realistic expectations, knowing who will buy. Check, well… sort of. Let me put it this way: I know a lot more people who have said they will buy the book than have ordered it. But, I’m still getting the word out and it’s early, so I’m not going to let that stop me.

Business in place, funds to invest. Check, well… sort of. There’s always a money crisis. What I didn’t think about was that the cost of the books is not the only cost. There are promotional materials (even a fee for the email invitations), postcards, posters, ISBN numbers (lots of 10 for $250), membership in the Pro-plan for publishing, Website setup cost and domain registration, Paypal fees, and what we used to call in the building industry “sweat equity.”

Marketing plan, check. Family and friends willing to do the author promo and sales bit. Reluctantly, check. No illlusions about how easy this will be. OUCH!

That’s where step 37 in the process comes in. When you find out your books will be printed in South Carolina and will be shipped to you via the Panama Canal unless you pay double to get them on a steam locomotive across the country, or quadruple to get them by truck with the possibility they will arrive for the release party… Panic! When your social media promotions yield minimal results for your surveys and pre-orders… Panic! When you discover you’ve scheduled your release party opposite a performance in the theater… Panic! When you cut the quantity of books to be ordered in half so not to become the cliché author with a garage full of unsold copies… Panic! When you find a misspelling on page 37 after the print order has been shipped… Panic! When you are two weeks away from release and still don’t have the ePUB design finished… Panic!

And after you have hyperventilated, hug the dog, go for a walk, write it all down, and keep going. Because that’s what you committed to in the first place. Follow the plan and you will get there. As Leonard Bernstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

The Joy of Paper

2011-03-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

I know. For years, I’ve been extolling the virtues of eBooks and electronic reading. I’ve worked in the industry. I’ve produced eBooks of my own and others works. I’ve filed patents. I’ve designed defaults. I’ve done everything but digitize myself and live in the computer.

But even I succumb to paper.

Holding my new paperback proof of Steven George & The Dragon that arrived yesterday is an unfathomable experience. Granted, two of my novels were included in After Hours anthologies that were printed. One of my books came out in eBook three years ago and paperback last year. And they are all exciting. But this one…

I think it is part of the “launch” concept. Remember when Microsoft launched Windows 95? There was so much pre-launch buzz that my 80+ year-old father-in-law who had never touched a computer in his life was asking me if he needed to get Windows. Now I’m sitting here with a copy of my book in hand thinking of all the things that need to be done before the release party on March 25th.

What do you mean the invitations haven’t gone out yet?????

Everything is so real now that there is paper in my hands. I’ll be ordering the first print run today. The evites will to out today. Paper invitations will start going out this week. (If you want one, let me know your address!) The poster will go up this week. The ePUB version will be finished this week and checked into Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The deluxe PDF on CD-ROM will be designed in the next 10 days and a special sample will go out.

And it’s all because of this little stack of paper that I hold in my hands. The word "proof" has so many meanings!

The moral of the story

2011-02-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

When Aesop told fables in the sixth century B.C.E., he always had a moral to the story. “Slow and steady wins the race.” “The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.” “It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.” The stories were all meant to teach something. We are told that Aesop was a slave, but also that he was honored in ancient Greece and there are statues of him dating back to the same period. His stories, usually just a couple of paragraphs, still survive. Moral: “Low estate does not prevent honor.”

Well, I made that up. What I was really trying to get to was how storytelling has evolved. We would be hard-put to publish stories that were only a paragraph or two. Our reading public wants a story that will absorb them and get them involved. Aesop is a classroom technique, not a storytelling technique. Yet satisfaction in reading a story is still often derived from the moral, or in contemporary language, the punchline.

We want to see Harry Potter triumph because good needs to conquer evil, and there is no power like love. We look for the hero’s journey in everything we read, and are disappointed if the last line is not perfect. I have personal experience with this based on my first book, For Blood or Money. Six words can make a huge difference.

By this time, in fact, we’re probably all aware of Smith Magazine’s Six Word Memoirs. It’s not a bad technique to use when planning your book or story. Summarize the point in six words. For Steven George & The Dragon, I can summarize the entire point in six words: “All roads lead to the dragon.” Within the book, each of the 19 original and recast folktales also has a moral, even though we don’t have to be hit over the head with it at the end of the story. “Sometimes fools are the best teachers.” “People care for people who care.” “Bridges are meant to be crossed.”

Whether you are working on a book, a story, a poem, or a term paper, “Know the point before you write.”

Killing the Sacred Cow (metaphorically speaking)

2011-02-22T08:23:00.001-08:00

I finished the layout for Steven George & The Dragon yesterday and sent it off to the printer for a proof. That should give me just enough time to get copies in hand by the March 25 release date. Whew! There are some interesting things about doing your own layout. I’ve been on both ends of this. I’m a layout artist and a real stickler about letter spacing, line lengths, widows and orphans, and ligatures. I use good professional grade tools to handle the typography. But when laying out my own work, I have another tool that I learned back in my days of publishing magazines: Write to fit.

If I’m laying out someone else’s work, I have to make it look good based solely on the typography. But when I lay out a page of my own work and there is a “-ing.” sitting by itself on the first line of the next page, I don’t have to go back eight pages to pick up an extra line of type and crowd the letters in the offending paragraph to suck the suffix into the previous line. I can also look at the whole paragraph and say “I really don’t need ‘that’ in this sentence.” Voila! cut the word and close up the space needed. I was surprised at how often I edited a little something in the text in the layout application to gain a line or improve the layout.

But those were all pretty meaningless edits. The copy was just as good or sometimes better after the edit than before. It was in the last pre-layout edit of the book that I killed the sacred cow. From the time I started writing this book back in 2007, I had the idea that there was a confusion between Steven George and Saint George based on similar abbreviations in old manuscripts: Stⁿ vs. St^e. It was a clever conceit that allowed me to treat Steven as though he were the one the stories of St. George & The Dragon were all about. I was proud of this cleverness and explained it in the first paragraph of the book.

In the last edit, I killed it. I even changed the name of the book from Stⁿ George & The Dragon to Steven George & The Dragon. The truth is that people don’t need to have that little cleverness explained. No one can miss the connection between the two and the cow had to be sacrificed.

Sometimes I wonder how many other sacred cows I carry around in my life. There could be steak for dinner.

The Independent Confederacy--a novel idea

2011-02-20T09:30:00.001-08:00

Reading about the “celebrations” in Alabama this week of the anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America got me thinking, and that’s always a dangerous thing. Rather than present my ideas as a political statement, however, I’m going to suggest an idea for a novel. Since I’m not much on writing historical fiction, feel free to grab it and run with it. I might even read the book when it comes out!

Suppose Lincoln had let the South secede. No Civil War. Now, I’m not saying there would have been no war, because the North would have remained a haven for run-away slaves and there would have been a war over it and continuing tensions along the Mason Dixon line. There would also have been a war over California, but I’m not going to change history too much. There would be a continuing line of connection from the North all the way across to California, while the South would not have been able to push enough people westward to colonize California. As for Texas, of course, it would be a nation independent of either of its parents, comprising Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, and it would still be at war with Mexico.

Wait. Is that part fiction or history?

Well, knowing what we know now of the ultimate demise of slave states, we could assume that sometime (probably within the last 50 years) there would have been a revolution in the South and ultimately it would have become a black fundamentalist state. I don’t know if it would have been fundamentalist Christian or Islamic, and I don’t think it makes much difference. You pick.

Of course, the United States would likely not have been quite such a world power or influencer during the World Wars, and it is likely that under Kaiser Wilhelm, a united Europe would have fended off the advance of communism.

So, what we would have today would be a world very much different than the one we currently live in, or not so much, depending on your perspective—all because preserving the Union was not a priority for Lincoln.

Take this novel idea and run with it.

How to help promote a new novel

2011-02-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

People have asked what they can do to help promote Steven George & The Dragon. I'm happy to let you all know. It's really simple. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Visit StnGeorge.com and read about the book. If you have a Facebook account, click the like button at the bottom. Share the link with your friends. (And of course, you can reserve your copy of the book.)
Visit the Facebook fanpage and “Like” it at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Steven-George-The-Dragon/190084564346235. (Or search for "Steven George & The Dragon" from Facebook.) Also, “Share” the page with your friends. Feel free to leave comments.
If you have a Twitter account, Tweet the web address http://stngeorge.com.
Reserve Friday 3/25 in the early evening (open house from 5:30-8:00 p.m.) to come to Jitters Coffee in Redmond for the release party and readings.

Of course, the more people you tell, the better it will be. When we talk about "word of mouth" campaigns, we're talking about your mouth!

Thanks to all the friends who have helped so far!

Steven George & The Dragon

2011-02-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

We can finally announce the date! March 25th will see the publication of the young adult fantasy novel Steven George & The Dragon. The presale site is now open at http://stngeorge.com. Half of gross profits from presales will be donated to Room to Read for the building of libraries in developing countries. Before you buy, you can read the first chapter online.

The book will be available in both a print edition and on a CD-ROM eBook that includes both the deluxe color PDF and a non-copy-protected ePUB that will play on most eReaders and computer eBook readers. The reserved copies will all be signed by the author and the order form includes a space for your instructions on how to personalize your copy.

Stⁿ George was originally blogged during NaNoWriMo 2007 when it was enthusiastically received. Comments from readers were influential in determining the final version of the story as it now appears.

Raised from birth as a dragonslayer, Steven discovers that he is poorly equipped to deal with the overwhelming world outside his small remote village. That might be because none of the village elders actually knew what a dragon looked like, exactly where it would be found, or how to kill it. Armed only with his naivety and his ability to tell stories, Steven exchanges "once-upon-a-times" with every willing stranger he meets. Each improbable tale leads him closer to the true meaning of his quest. Ultimately he discovers that if all that looks like a dragon is not a dragon, then it follows that all that is a dragon may not look like a dragon.

Join in the fun by ordering your copy of Steven George and The Dragon at http://stngeorge.com!

A Round of Words in 80 Days

2010-12-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

I'm contemplating participating in A Round of Words in 80 Days, sponsored by Kate Nolan. The idea is to set a word (or other accomplishment) goal to be done in 80 days, four times a year. I think she's got a great idea, and if I can pull myself into focus for these short but realistic periods, I might be able to advance my writing career a little. The first one doesn't start until January 3, so I'll be figuring out the goal between now and then. We'll see.

Setting New Goals—What Comes Next?

2010-12-03T10:00:00.001-08:00

Okay, I have two new novels written, what’s next? I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of trouble taking the next step. I’ve written nine novels and one play script since 2004. Yeah. Cool huh?

One novel has been published. For Blood or Money was published in 2008 by Long Tale Press. One novel has been polished and submitted to one agent. Gutenberg’s Other Book won second prize for thriller in the PNWA Literary Competition this year. It is time to start sending it to more publishers/agents now. The first of those will go out this weekend. I need to put this on a schedule of one submission per week until someone bites and puts this up. If it has not been picked up by March, I’m taking it private and will self-publish. It will be available next summer one way or another.

I have a rewrite to do on the play, an adaptation from two of my novels, Steven George & The Dragon and Steven George & The Terror. Those were NaNoWriMo novels in 2007 and 2008. They’ve got good bones, and if the play is picked up for production in 2011-12 season, I’d like the books available by the time we go into production. Those are definitely self-publish eligible.

So, priorities. What do I do first? (Especially when I’m already thinking of another novel idea in the back of my head. Down boy!)

Weekly submissions of Gutenberg’s Other Book shouldn’t be that difficult to orchestrate.
Polish first 25 pages of The Volunteer and prepare it for two submissions. This summer I had an editor express an interest in it, so I’ll send it to him. And it will be my entry into this year’s PNWA Literary Competition. Both should be ready by YE2010.
Finish polishing The Volunteer over the course of the next few months so that it is ready to hand over if I get a request at the next PNWA conference or from the editor. This should be top writing priority.
Start putting the two Stn. George novels in shape for publication by fall. They should be ready for Holiday season 2011.

Well, the question now is whether I can exercise the discipline it takes to focus on “only” these tasks, while writing blog articles, stories, and presentations that might mean actual payment for work instead of bread and water. Here’s hoping.

EDIT: 12/11/2010 As to number three, I've accelerated that item to have a polished draft before Christmas because I have an editor request to see it over the holidays. That should simplify my objectives for the next two weeks!

2010 NaNoWriMo is Victory 7 & 8

2010-12-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

Well, It's all done. I finished both "The Volunteer" and "Stocks & Bondage." Here is the wordmap for "Stocks & Bondage":

And here is the wordmap for "The Volunteer":

Grand total of 101,000 words plus change.

I just figured it out

2010-10-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Typically, when I sit down to write a book I have a pretty good outline and I know what the outcome is supposed to be. Sometimes (in fact, often) that outcome changes as I write, but I start with a direction. For example, I know what the outcome of The Volunteer is expected to be. I know how I'm going to get there. The rest is writing.

When it came to Stocks & Bondage, though, I've had a lot of what happens in mind, but not what the outcome is. I know that the key has always been in the six computers that the dead woman has in her home. (Why else would you hire a computer forensics detective to investigate the death?) But I really had no idea what was on the computers that was so important. I had thought vaguely that it had to do with finance or credit card theft. But this morning as I tossed between not enough sleep and have to get up, it finally dawned on me. Oh my! Suddenly, my book not only has action, it has an outcome and it is mind-boggling. No wonder Deb Riley has to get into those boxes. Now if she can just do it without being exposed...

If you'd like to read the adventure in November as Deb blogs it, just go to my Sponsor Me page and make any donation. Send me a note (comment here) with your email address, and I'll unlock the blog for you. There's other great prizes, too.

Now that I know where I'm going, I can't wait to get started.

Stocks & Bondage plan is progressing.

2010-10-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

When I write a mystery, especially one that happens in real time for 30 or 31 days, I do a lot of planning ahead of time. Having only decided to do this mystery 2 weeks ago, my planning time is short to say the least. This story has been in my head for quite some time. In fact, I intended to write it immediately after Municipal Blondes was finished. but I've learned a lot about the few factual events that surrounded a somewhat similar case than I did at the time. Nonetheless, I have to do planning. I thought you might be interested in seeing the first week of the plan for Stocks & Bondage.

1 Monday	2 Tuesday	3 Wednesday	4 Thursday	5 Friday	6 Saturday	7 Sunday
I got kissed. Her new assignment. Going to a party at Jordan's house.	I met Detective Handsome. I have to get new car tabs. I'm running errands. Jordan wants to talk to me	I hate funerals. Dealing with Davy. Running into Simon. At least Brenda is dead.	Call from Det. Handsome. Going to visit Grover Sat. Getting a new look… or two.	Date night. What do you do with a man?	Savannah. Stepping into a dead woman's shoes.	Seeing Savannah through the eyes of Georgia. A ragged old man.

Win great prizes by supporting my NaNoWriMo effort!

2010-10-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, Family, and Righteous Supporters,

This November, the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light will be bringing together the most mighty of endurance novelists for an event that will define our generation forever. I'm speaking, of course, of National Novel Writing Month. It's a global writing challenge in which participants spend November (and portions of our sanity!) writing a 50,000-word book in just 30 days. This will be my 7th NaNoWriMo and my 8th and 9th novel since November 2004!

My good friend Cloister has a way of bringing out the best in me, whether it is as a book doctor analyzing and improving what I write, as a business partner choosing books to publish, or as my own personal social conscience egging me on to do some good. I met Cloister in 2004, just after finishing my first NaNoWriMo novel, Willow Mills. Over the course of the next few months, I convinced him that he should join me for the next NaNo and he finally agreed, providing we find some way to use our books for a good cause. Joined by "GCK" the three of us combined our first drafts of the 2005 NaNo into an anthology and used sales of the book to raise over $5,000 (including Microsoft matching funds) for The Office of Letters and Light (sponsor of NaNoWriMo).

When the idea of sponsorships came up this year, Cloister beat me to it and pledged to raise $1,000! What could I do but commit to match this great fundraising effort for the Young Writers Program at the OLL? The problem is that neither of us work for Microsoft anymore, so we can't get matching funds there. That means we're really counting on the generosity of our friends across the country to help us out.

In order to reach this goal, Cloister has put up the offer of a bunch of prizes for those who sponsor him, so I of course, I'm putting up some prizes, too. I'm upping the ante a little, too. I have a novel that "needs" to be written called "The Volunteer." It will be my cradled baby during November. But I also have a novel that "wants" to be written called "Stocks & Bondage - A Deb Riley Mystery." Yes, Deb Riley is back! So I'm going to do them both! At the same time! Now, here are the prizes:

The Wallet Quick-Draw winner: The first person to donate (other than me) gets the first bound and printed copy of their choice of "The Volunteer" or "Stocks & Bondage". I'll produce a special edition from a print-on-demand service just for you, sign it, and ship it.

The Luck of the Draw winner: From the list of sponsors who don’t win any other prize, I’ll pick a random person in traditional raffle-style fashion. That person shall receive a free Book Cover Design for their own novel. Don't think that you have to be a NaNovelist to enjoy this prize. You come up with the title of your novel (even if you haven't written one) and a two sentence blurb about the story. I'll create a cover for your novel, and print the dust jacket. Even if you haven't written the story, you can frame this full color print for your wall!

The Grand Prize winner: Whomsoever shall donate the single largest lump-sum to this sponsorship drive shall receive a free Book Cover Design for their novel, a complete print layout in PDF form, and an industry-standard ePUB of the book, delivered on a CD in a case with your cover on it. Yes, that assumes that you've actually written a novel. If the grand prize winner has not actually written a novel, he or she may either donate the prize to their choice of budding novelist, or a short-story written by me following the blurb they provide, designed and delivered as above.

The Everybody’s a Winner winner: This is the one that everyone really wants. In the tradition of "For Blood or Money" and Municipal Blondes, I will be blogging "Stocks & Bondage." Because everyone who donates deserves something, each donor will be recognized in the "Sponsors" sidebar of that blog (unless you prefer not to be) and will have access to the new novel while it is being written on Deb Riley's blog. You will be able to interact with the story as it takes shape, communicate with computer forensics detective Deb Riley of DH Investigations, and become an active part of the story from the inside! I've blogged several previous novels, but this one will be locked for access to sponsors only until the end of November.

That's it! Click here to donate and win a great prize, but more importantly, support the great work being done in the Young Writers Program, encouraging kids to put their dreams in print. And, by the way, after you donate, leave a comment to this post so I can unlock the story for you. You'll get a sneak peak at what Deb's been up to when you do!

Stocks & Bondage

2010-10-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking I may do two novels during NaNoWriMo this year. Yes, crazy, but "The Volunteer" is going to pretty much write itself and I've been thinking about a sequel to "For Blood or Money" and "Municipal Blondes" for some time. To recap, FBOM introduces computer forensics detective Dag Hamar and his assistant Deb Riley. It is told from Dag's perspective. "Municipal Blondes" is fully a Deb Riley mystery in which she chases down a corporate cartel using cell phones to rob the industry blind.

In "Stocks & Bondage" Deb is back and in disguise as she investigates the apparent suicide of a 50ish woman who had a roomful of computers. Working with police in a sting operation to catch the woman's boyfriend, Deb is trapped in her new identity, unable to risk her friends, her business, and her life as the boyfriend relentlessly pursues her. And at each step of the way, the dead woman's computers reveal a little more of the story.

If you want to get caught up, "For Blood or Money" is available in eBook and paperback from Long Tale Press. "Municipal Blondes" (and Deb's view of the FBOM story) can be read on-line at Municipal Blondes. (The story starts with the blog entry on November 30, 2006.) If I pursue the Deb Riley story, you'll be able to follow the daily action on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dhinvestigation.

The Volunteer - blurb

2010-10-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

November is nearly upon us once more, and that mean National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This year will be my 7th Nano. My subject this time is very different than anything I've done before. Here is the blurb:

Wandering through the streets of America's cities and towns looking for a handout, a meal, or a bottle, Gerald Good has lots of time to think about what led him to chronic homelessness and alcoholism. He was so certain he would rise above it thirty years ago and thinks often of the life he left behind. When it is all offered back to him, however, he realizes the true reason he volunteered.

Yes it is dark. No, the ending is not particularly uplifting. In reality it is the shadow self that haunts the dark places in my mind.

Gutenberg's Other Book wins PNWA award

2010-07-25T06:59:00.001-07:00

Last night Gutenberg's Other Book won the second place award in the 2010 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Competition in the Mystery/Thriller category. Needless to say, I am pretty stoked and very grateful to those who have helped me get here. Without doing an academy speech, I have to say that my wife has been a constant encouragement and constructive critic, and that my business partner, Jason Black, has proven why he is a Book Doctor. Visit him at Plot to Punctuation.

I write like:

2010-07-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Samples take from different parts of Gutenberg's Other Book.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Hmmm. I'm not sure that's a compliment. According to the Publisher's Weekly review of his book Infinite Jest,

With its baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references, Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel (after The Broom in the System) will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis. But few others will have the stamina for it. Set in an absurd yet uncanny near-future, with a cast of hundreds and close to 400 footnotes, Wallace's story weaves between two surprisingly similar locales: Ennet House, a halfway-house in the Boston Suburbs, and the adjacent Enfield Tennis Academy. It is the "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" (each calendar year is now subsidized by retail advertising); the U.S. and Canada have been subsumed by the Organization of North American Nations, unleashing a torrent of anti-O.N.A.N.ist terrorism by Quebecois separatists; drug problems are widespread; the Northeastern continent is a giant toxic waste dump; and CD-like "entertainment cartridges" are the prevalent leisure activity. The novel hinges on the dysfunctional family of E.T.A.'s founder, optical-scientist-turned-cult-filmmaker Dr. James Incandenza (aka Himself), who took his life shortly after producing a mysterious film called Infinite Jest, which is supposedly so addictively entertaining as to bring about a total neural meltdown in its viewer. As Himself's estranged sons?professional football punter Orin, introverted tennis star Hal and deformed naif Mario?come to terms with his suicide and legacy, they and the residents of Ennet House become enmeshed in the machinations of the wheelchair-bound leader of a Quebecois separatist faction, who hopes to disseminate cartridges of Infinite Jest and thus shred the social fabric of O.N.A.N. With its hilarious riffs on themes like addiction, 12-step programs, technology and waste management (in all its scatological implications), this tome is highly engrossing?in small doses. Yet the nebulous, resolutionless ending serves to underscore Wallace's underlying failure to find a suitable novelistic shape for his ingenious and often outrageously funny material.

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Oh yeah! Do it like the master. About Under the Dome,

King's return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester's Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome's ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King's earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.

I write like
Agatha Christie

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Well, there is something a little old-fashioned about this, but I guess that's just me. About Murder on the Orient Express:

"Need it be said -- the little grey cells solve once more the seemingly insoluble. Mrs Christie makes an improbable tale very real, and keeps her readers enthralled and guessing to the end." Times Literary Supplement "A brilliantly ingenious story." Dorothy L. Sayers, Daily Herald "Ingenuity at its height ! the idea is utterly novel, the setting a model of realism, and the characters a versatile, attractive crew." Woman's Journal "A piece of classic workmanship .. exquisite and wholly satisfying." News Chronicle "A brilliantly ingenious story." Daily Herald "Agatha Christie has given a noble start to 1934 with a murder mystery coceived and carried out on the finest classical lines." DOROTHY L. SAYERS, Sunday Times "A piece of classic workmanship ! exquisite and wholly satisfying." News Chronicle "Ingenuity at its height ! the idea is utterly novel, the setting a model of realism, and the characters a versatile, attractive crew." Woman's Journal "In Poirot Mrs Christie has created an extremely likeable and lively character, and his adventures are always welcome." Morning Post --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

I write like
Dan Brown

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It was inevitable. But, at least it should say something about being commercially viable. About his best novel (though not movie), Angels & Demons:

Pitting scientific terrorists against the cardinals of Vatican City, this well-plotted if over-the-top thriller is crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama. Robert Langdon, a Harvard specialist on religious symbolism, is called in by a Swiss research lab when Dr. Vetra, the scientist who discovered antimatter, is found murdered with the cryptic word "Illuminati" branded on his chest. These Iluminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat; what the long-defunct association has to do with Dr. Vetra's death is far from clear. Vetra's daughter, Vittoria, makes a frightening discovery: a lethal amount of antimatter, sealed in a vacuum flask that will explode in six hours unless its batteries are recharged, is missing. Almost immediately, the Swiss Guard discover that the flask is hidden beneath Vatican City, where the conclave to elect a new pope has just begun. Vittoria and Langdon rush to recover the canister, but they aren't allowed into the Vatican until it is discovered that the four principal papal candidates are missing. The terrorists who are holding the cardinals call in regarding their pending murders, offering clues tied to ancient Illuminati meeting sites and runes. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that a sinister Vatican entity with messianic delusions is in league with the terrorists. Packing the novel with sinister figures worthy of a Medici, Brown (Digital Fortress) sets an explosive pace as Langdon and Vittoria race through a Michelin-perfect Rome to try to save the cardinals and find the antimatter before it explodes. Though its premises strain credulity, Brown's tale is laced with twists and shocks that keep the reader wired right up to the last revelation.

It's a finalist

2010-07-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm incredibly excited to have learned that Gutenberg's Other Book has been chosen as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary Competition! It is a great honor to be among these other fine writers. Winners will be announced on Saturday night, July 24 at the 2010 PNWA Writers Conference. Yes, I will be there!

And if we fail...

2010-02-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

You are probably aware by now that I’m a writer and a publisher. In fact, everyone in my family is a writer. Just Friday night, DW rushed DD and me to a mailbox service to get our entries for a literary competition delivered before the 6:00 deadline. We barely made it before they locked the doors. And neither of us would have had our novels ready to submit if it hadn’t been for countless hours DW spent editing our material and pushing us to revise and clarify what we had written. Whether we win or not, both DD and I know that we have submitted quality work, perhaps our best ever, to this competition.

It was in the midst of this frantic revision cycle that I was inspired with the topic for this post. In my thriller, the heroes are driven in their quest to find a hidden treasure, pursued by unknown forces bent on preventing them from succeeding. There are explosions, injuries, mad dashes across country, biblio-terrorism (a term I coined for this story), and kidnappings. At some point—and I’m sorry I don’t remember the exact words—DW asked me why they were so anxious to find this treasure. What would happen if they failed?

You’ve probably read a book or have seen a movie at some time that sounds a lot like what I’ve described. The heroes have to overcome all kinds of obstacles to complete their quest, but someplace along the line you realize that if they just stopped running the villains would never find the treasure that only the heroes have the clue to. The secret would be safe from their enemy; or someone else would discover it.

As a by-product of this, we find that thrillers have to have increasingly cataclysmic risks. If I don’t pursue the killer in spite of being warned off by my superiors, the president will die. A nuclear weapon will be detonated in a major metropolitan area. World War III will break out. An asteroid will hit the earth and all life will end.

We start thinking that if the obstacles are there, then the result of failure is world-ending.

Unfortunately, in writing as in life, the level of the obstacles can completely hide the value of overcoming them. Yes, your hero should be thwarted at every opportunity. As a friend said once, "Steal his shoes." But there really has to be a reason for him to continue, and it doesn't always have to be the end of the world. Many times, the intense personal issue that the hero faces will motivate their actions more than the end result of actually reaching the goal.

For example, protecting or saving a loved one (common in thrillers) is often just as important as stopping the next world war. Personal obsessions, though legitimate motivators, are significantly less interesting to readers. High moral standards are the classic tragic flaw. Oedipus must uncover the truth, even though the truth causes the suicide of his mother/wife and the blinding of his eyes. He is warned not to pursue this line of questioning, but because he is essentially a just man, he must uncover the cause of the plague on his country. The thing at risk is not always the object of the quest.

I'm an amateur at making this happen, but realizing that it has to happen is changing the way I write and the motivations of my leading characters. What do you think would motivate a historical librarian to pursue the discovery of an ancient treasury of documents even when he is being threatened, chased, and injured at every turn? It has to be important enough for him to deny his own instincts for self-preservation. Otherwise, why go on? Just so he can call himself the discoverer? Most people don't really have that big an ego. If biblio-terrorists start chasing me I'm not going to the library any more!

Is your character's motivation believable? logical? sufficient to drive him past the obstacles?

The Joy of (re-)Writing

2010-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

I is not lost on me that I last posted to the noveling notes in October when I had just gotten feedback on Gutenberg's Other Book that made me decide to start over. Here's the story and what has happened in three months.

Trying to get my fiction off dead center, I've tried a couple of new techniques with Gutenberg's Other Book that have worked so well that I want to share them.

I decided last year that I'd gotten too heavily involved with NaNoWriMo and that overall I wasn't taking the time and care that I used to take with my writing. I've improved as a writer by forcing myself to focus all my writing energy on 30 days a year, certainly my productivity, but the projects were dying as quickly as they were created. I've been doing research and preparing to write GOB for two years and last January I decided that it was time to give it life. I filled a journal with pencil-written notes and according to the time-stamp started writing on January 4th. I wrote a little almost every day, letting the ideas germinate and following an evolving outline that I kept in the journal.

But by August 12th, I was in a stall. I had 43,000 words and just couldn't force myself to add the next chapter. So I put the project aside and in September I asked Jason and the DW to read and comment. (BTW, if you haven't read Jason's "Show some character" blog, you are missing some of the best free advice on the Internet!) The comments I got back really shed light on the weaknesses in my story and in my characters. They also showed that there was the germ of a story that was worth following through with, but needed serious rethinking. For one thing, in the liesure of months instead of days to write I allowed myself to follow no less than five different story-arcs. Everyone had a secret agenda or organization or both. It had gotten so complex that I lost the main story and POV. So I closed the book and started over.

I did some outlining, culled my character list, and focused on the main event. I completely avoided thinking about the pseudo-historical backstory that was over a quarter of my current draft. November 1, I put pen to paper, literally, and started writing again. In 31 days, I had 54,000 pretty well-crafted words in a story with a single arc and minimal distractions to the limited POV. I was pretty happy with the result, but knew that there were other things that had to be exposed as well, so the book -- in spite of ending -- wasn't finished. I set it aside and came back to it after the first of the year, intending to write the bakstory arc.

As I read the new work, I was still aware that it wasn't quite right. There were inconsistencies and weaknesses that I could see right away. So I decided to take an entirely new approach. I began rewriting the story in first person. I've had pretty good success with a couple of books written in first person, but I wasn't sure I could expose enough of the storyline if I didn't have a narrator. The first revelation in rewriting the first four pages was that the book started in the wrong place. According to my MC, the story started a bit further in than I thought then looped back to catch people up. I let him tell it as he saw it.

Since my major goal in this rewrite is to have a solid 30 pages and synopsis for the PNWA Literary Competition in February, I'm focusing all my energy on the first chapter. So my next step was to rewrite the first four pages again, shifting to third person narration but maintaining the refocused limited POV.

Wow! What a difference. My first four pages are an order of magnitude better than the first four pages of the second draft and so far beyond the first that I can't believe that's where I started. You drop into my MC's head from the first paragraph and watch the story unfold from there.

Now, I'm continuing to do the double rewrite, continuing to narrate the story in first person from the MC's point of view and then recast it into third person. It's an interesting technique and involves a lot of actual re-writing. I think that is where I lost it with previous NaNo books because I thought all they needed was editing. It's simply not so. If you are writing something as complex as a novel, it deserves the kind of thought that comes from actually writing the sentence again and evaluating if it is the right sentence for the book. It makes a huge difference!

Plot resolution of a sort

2009-10-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've been really pushing the plot in directions it didn't want to go, especially when it comes to the mysterious "Voice." Everything has been a stretch from his ability to manipulate people to the crazy weapon to the ancient rivalry of two guilds of typeseters and printers. It is time to simpllify the whole shebang. Here's what I'm thinking.

I've already established that about the time of WWII, Frank and another typesetter were involved in a "top printer" competition, which Frank supposedly won. The other competitor is The Voice (TV), who I'll have to name now. The prize was to become a Third Degree Master. Frank, for reasons he will explain sometime, declined the honor. TV took the opportunity to claim the rite and became the third degree master. When he found what was in the strongbox, he stole one page of the secret writing that described the Library of Alexandria and Ptolemy I's creation of the Djinn. His intent was to use the description on that page to find the Library, whether he ever found the other book with the location or not.

Unfortunately, while he was exploring in Egypt in the 60s, about the time of the Israel/Egypt 7-day war, his page of the manuscript was torn apart and a bit of it was discovered by a radical Muslim scholar who passed information on to a cell of extremists bent on the destruction of non-Muslim books. The small cult arose out of the idea that Caliph Omar had ordered the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and therefore they needed to pursue the destruction of libraries and especially to find and dstroy the remaining volumes of the Library of Alexandria.

So, that sets up the search being handed down to his granddaughter, Maddie, and his apprentice. Maddie and the apprentice (who thinks one day Maddie will be his) hatch the plot touse Keith to find the other Gutenberg. Maddie intends to use Keith in anyway she needs to in order to get what she wants, but ends up falling in love with him and betraying the apprentice. With other complications to be disclosed.

That eliminates both the backstory and the whole inter-guild rivalry thing. That was getting too complicated and too essoteric. The idea that the guild is betrayed from within by the highest ranking master brings them into a deeper internal conflict and better motivation than warring secret societies. It still, also, brings in a reason for Homeland Security and the potential for deeper destruction of libraries than what is currently implied. They don't want to herd Maddie and Keith, "they" want to destroy the library. So much for the secret weapon.

Back to the drawing board

2009-10-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

Having decided that I will start over on November 1, I really need to settle the big questions and map out my characters and conflicts.

Keith Drucker, principal male lead. Still not 100% happy with the name. Drucker is necessary (German for Printer). First name? Ready to take suggestions. Keith has to have a harder time of it all. Like Benjamin Franklin Gates in National Treasure, he has spent his life looking for Gutenberg's Other Book, thinking that it is the end of the search. He has even been ridiculed for believing it exist. Unlike Benjamin Gates, however, Keith is at home sifting through books one after another, tracking down collections and libraries. He is entirely a bookworm who makes his home among the books he loves and can't always separate reality from fantasy. I'm keeping the fact that he is a master typesetter and member of the oldest guild in that discipline. Keith is going to lose a lot in the process - possibly an eye, probably at least one finger (like his granddad), and his shoes.

Madeline Zayne, principal female lead. She has to be harder and more calculating. she is a willing participant in manipulating Keith. Sex is a side benefit. she takes on the assignment intending to steal the prize and give it to the enemy. (More definition needed there.) The problem is that as she progresses in the deception she becomes truly attached to Keith, first sympathetically and then in love. She acts on principle to try to put Gutenberg's Other Book in her library's collection, but is not an evil person. Ultimately she will have to decide whether to betray Keith or to betray her cause. Though attractive, Madeline is no great beauty. She is tall, broad at the hips, and freckled all over. But that makes her more believable as the geeky Keith's love interest. He has already figured out that he isn't going to date a cheerleader.

The Voice male archvillain. This whole commitment of Madeline to the cause takes a lot of unreasonable pressure off The Voice. He no longer has to have programmed her from infancy to be the perfect match for Keith and be manipulated by subtle references. He doesn't have to be omnipotent and we can actually give him some character. He has two big problems to deal with. The first is keeping Maddie on the team and providing momentum to get Keith moving. Left to his own devices, Keith would do an Internet search. We might not even need a new secret weapon, but that really provides the motivation for Homeland Security to get involved. That becomes The Voice's second major problem. He has to keep moving around and diverting Homeland Security's attention from Keith and Maddie. Of course, being an archvillain, The Voice has his own secret motivation that Maddie is not privy to. He plans to ultimately betray Maddie and profit from the adventure on his own. Ultimately he has no interest in preserving the result for mankind. got to figure his angle on that. Maybe he's actually moving the weapon to the Jihadists?

Granddad - Francis (Frank) Drucker, the old mentor and idol of Keith. Got to settle in and call him one thing. Don't keep changing his name based on who is talking to him. Frank is going to die. The question(s) is (are) when, where, and to what end? This will rip Keith's only anchor out from under him. Without Frank he is easy prey for Maddie and The Voice. Because it is set up for Frank to be crucial to solving the problem, Keith has to rise to his own power while grieving for his grandfather. I will see to it that Frank meets a good end.

Detective Robert Allen, the investigator working for Homeland Security who is always a step behind Keith and Maddie. Det. Allen has strong ties among the Kurds of Southeastern Turkey. His parents both immigrated from Turkey during or after the war. They became citizens and Robert - Kurdish name is Robar Allan - was born in the U.S. but his parents taught him Kurdish ways. Among the 5% of Kurds who are Zoroastrian, they are equally hated by the Turks, the Christians, and the Muslims. but because of his connections in Southeastern Turkey, it is he who actually is positioned to come to Keith and Maddie's aid when they are kidnapped.

The amorphous Jihadists, a supposed threat who we never actually see, but suspect are the ones who kidnap Maddie and Keith.I have painted apicture that could justify their single-minded desire to destroy the library. They are radicals, convinced that their act, while contrary to Muslim teaching, can b forgiven on the grounds that they are carrying out Caliph Omar's instructions 1400 years later. (His instructions to Emir Amrou in Alexandria were as follows: "As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do wihout them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed then, and destroy them." -The Vanished Library by Luciano Canfora)

Now, on to the main plot lines.

I'm starting over

2009-10-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

In January I set out to write the book I've been planning for two years. At around 45,000 words, I gae my unfinished draft to Jason who is also a book doctor at http://plottopunctuation.com. When Jason was done with it, I handed it over to my wife.

What I got back is - figurativel speaking - more red ink than black. It is enough to shake your belief in yourself if you let it.

Curiously, however, I am strangely relieved and encouraged.

Early on I struggled with getting the right voice for the work. hen there was sorting out the multiple storylines, developing a cast of distinct and compelling characters, and weaving in a backstory that covers 24 centuries. I was getting bogged down and progressively more dissatisfied with what I was producing, but I couldn't put my finger on the problem. After the incredibly in-depth and thoughful reviews by Jason & Michele, though, I'm pretty confident that I know what the problem is ... er ... problems are. But this is not a time to edit.

This is a time to re-write in its most literal sense. Start from the beginning with a clean sheet of paper and write the book the way I thought it was going to go instead of the way it went. Sure there are portions of my first draft that are "so brilliant, I'll just copy and paste." I can think of one. But my NaNoWriMo this year will be a new novel, somewhat based on the one I wrote the first nine months of the year.

I've looked back at some of my earlier (30 years ago) novels and have realized that I was much closer to that kind of writing process then than I've been for a long time. I'm still blaming a lot of it on word processing. When we started getting computers, our writing mode changed. When I had one shot at typing a page correctly or starting over, I was much more careful about getting the right word down the first time. When I re-wrote a novel (and my first one has gone through 14 drafts) I had to type it again, not copy and paste and spell-check. As a result, even though I was still a novice at learning the craft, I was more careful about everything. When computers came along, I succumbed, like a great many other people, to the idea of getting it down and editing it later. Only the editing never seemed to equal what I got out of a complete rewrite.

If you see me at write-ins during Nano this year, you'l see a strange thing (that is, even stranger than usual). I'll be writing with a pen in a notebook. You might catch me typing what I've written, but I'm going to be a little more anachronistic than usual. I believe it will improve my writing. Sorry to say it might also mean that I don't finish 50,000 words in 30 days, but I expect them to be higher quality words.

Oh yes, and that one thing that I think is good enough to copy and paste? The title: Gutenberg's Other Book. Now to write a novel worthy of the title.

The Danger of the Djinn

2009-06-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

I've painted a believable case for the Islamic world to want to get rid of the Djinn and the library, or scrolls that they have. The Djinn are mentioned in the Quran as having been created by Allah. If a scroll predating Mohammed by nearly a millenium recorded in detail the creation of the djinn by Ptolemy I as a secret army, then that would cast doubt in the minds of some regarding the infallibility of the Quran. That would be enough to drive some factions to seek to destroy the offending scroll.

But the Djinn pose a more universal problem. It seems that in every part of the world, there are two sometimes opposing and sometimes cooperative forces. One is the force of national government and the other is the force of religion. Both of these forces lay down laws and rules that people must live by. In the United States, there was a governmental founding that separated church and state - a direct reaction to the British system in which the head of the state is also the head of the church, even though both operate separately. In some Islamic countries, we see the state ruled out as a force in government and the laws of the religion being the only guide needed for government. In China, we see the opposite in which the state is the only ruling force and church or religion is scarcely tolerated. So what if there were shown to be a third force that obviated both Church and State?

My original thought was that the Djinn had made the library a type of religious institution - a sort of temple, if you will. But the real danger is that it holds the potential to supplant both the religions and the nationalistic governments. Some people have held up science as this end-all, but I submit that it is knowledge. The Djinn have developed universal access to all knowledge in the form of a non-religious institution that crosses all national and religious boundaries. It is non-temporal, non-geographic, non-deistic knowledge. It is called The Library. That makes the Djinn the enemies of nationalism, religion, and political/economic theory. A very Vulcan sort of institution.

The librarians are truly the ones who rule the world.

The Secret Message

2009-05-23T10:29:00.001-07:00

The nicks on the characters of the 12 pages are a grill. If you place the rubric over the first page of the gospel, then prick through each of the nicks, they line up with a sequence of characters in the text. This sequence when spelled out holds a message from Gutenberg. It says, basically:

“The great library of Ptolemy is preserved beneath the mountain of the gods in Kommagene of Anatolia. But no man may ever find its entrance unless he find where the moon and the stars meet at the water. Here, fierce warriors guard the ancient treasure. Their religion is none but the saving of the word and by many they are called the fire of the desert. It was here that I learned the art of the book, and here that I made my greatest alchemical work. This secret has been hidden in the black river and preserved at the behest of my most excellent patron and guardian, Dieter von Isenburg; may he live long.”

The Temple Treasure

2009-05-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

71CE - Titus caries the Temple Treasure from Jerusalem to Rome

75CE - Vespasian builds the Temple of Peace in Rome to house the Temple Treasure.

455CE - The Vandal King Genseric sacks Rome and carries theTemple Treasure to Carthage

533CE - Belisarus, general of Emperor Justinian, recaptures the Temple Treasures when he defeats Carthage and sends them to Byzantium.

533CE - Justinian fears the Temple Treasure may bring evil and returns it to the Christian Churches in Jerusalem

614CE - Persians sack Jerusalem, kill the inhabitants and destroy the Christian Churches

631CE - Abbot Modestus restores the holy places in Jerusalem and becomes Patriarch of Jerusalem

Gelimer of Carthage entrusted the treasure to the scribe Boniface, a Libyan and native of Byzacium. Trapped in harbor at Hippo Regius, Boniface struck a deal with Belisarus to transfer the treasure to him.

A Jew, seeing the treasure, approached one known to the emperor and said, "These treasures I think it inexpedient to carry into the palace in Byzantium. Indeed it is not possible for them to be elsewhere than in the place where Solomon, the king of the Jews, formerly placed them. For it is because of these that Gizeric captured the palace of the Romans, and that now the Roman army has captured the Vandals."
Procopius (545CE) "History of the Wars"

Stuff about ink

2009-05-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

From 40 Centuries of Ink by David N. Varvalho.

Hebrew word for ink is "deyo," prepared for ritualistic purposes for 2000 years - powdered charcoal or soot mixed with water to which gum was sometimes added.

Arabian word for ink was "alchiber," used lampblack, made by burning oil, tar, or rosin, then comingled with gum and honey and pressed into cakes. Water added when it was wanted for use.

More backstory

2009-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

I think I've resolved the question of how/why Gutenberg gets involved with th eDjinn. There has long been a question regarding what Gutenberg's real role was in the invention of printing as it was used in Mainz. So, let's put pieces together.

The issues of printing included
- typedesign & molding
- dimensionally stable metal alloy
- press
- paper supply
- ink

At one point or another, Gutenberg has been credited with the invention of all these except paper. I'm going with the theory that even though he was experimenting with various forms of printing at least ten years before the Bible, his only real contribution was the alloy.

In 1440, we have a secret organization that has been protecting the library of Alexendria for 1700 years. It includes a caste of librarians who are charged with duplicating the texts because they would naturally deteriorate over that period of time. Since they continue to gather the writings of cultures all over the world, they have encountered various forms of printing, both woodcut, engraving, and movable type. So, it stands to reason that they would have also experimented with printing for the preservation of books.

The Djinn have realized long ago that they are inadequate for the job of preserving all the books of the world, so early in the first millenium (at least by 400 C.E.) they had infiltrated the Christian monastic system to recruit more copyists. At first the scriptora copied only Judeo-Christian texts, but as the system expanded, various classics were introduced for copying.

The Djinn also realize by the 15th century that the body of written work is expanding more rapidly than they can collect and preserve. So by the early 1400s, they are actively seeking ways to expand and de-centralize the library and principle of preservation. They decide to promote printing as one method of doing this (the creation and expansion of libraries is another) but the Djinn copyists are unhappy with the quality of the works. While looking into the method of expanding, they discover the alchemist Johannes Gutenberg. They engage him to develop a dimensionally stable alloy and in return for his services, they take him to the library to train in the other aspects of printing. These are the missing years in Gutenberg's life between the mid-1430s and 40s.

When Johannes returns from Turkey, he is filled with a vision and sets about to fund a printshop. It is possible that he was ejected from the Djinn because of some inadequacy, which is why he had to seek funding for his operation in Mainz. Because he is not a fabulous artist, his first typeface is large and is used to print indulgences. He sets an initial page or two of The Bible to try to get funding and also attracts a yount artistic talent named Peter Schoeffer. Schoeffer designs and cuts the 42-line type, and gradually takes over the printing business as Gutenberg becomes more absorbed in recreating his journey to the library. He shares his story only with his friend and priest, Dieter von Isenburg, who encourages Honnes to record and conceal the information. This ultimately leads to the rift with Johan Fust and the resulting suit.

In order to survive, Gutenberg sells his original type molds for the 36-line Bible and instructs the owner in Bamberg on how to set up the printshop. He even assists in the printing of the 36-line prior to 1460. When he is exiled from Mainz in 1462, he returns to Bamberg and, the print-run having been finished, he prints the rubric, concealing in it the secret location of the Djinn and their incredible library. He dissassembles his own family Bible from the wealthy Wyrich clan that was given to him by his mother. He re-assembles it with the printed gospels from the Bamberg Bible along with the personal memorial page of his grandparents, and re-binds it in the original binding, using the rubric for inside cover padding.

When Gutenberg returns to Mainz, he once again goes to Dieter. Dieter has been suplanted by Adolf of Nassau, but has been retained in Adolf's court. Gutenberg gives Dieter the family Gospel and tells him the secret is hidden in the Black River. Dieter sets Johannes up with Hummery and begins his plea with the Archbishop Adolf to recognize Johannes for his contributions, resulting in Adolf pensioning gutenberg in 1465.

Gutenberg dies in 1468 and Hummery inherits everything he owned. In 1476, after the death of Adolf, Dieter is restored to the archbishopric of Mainz. He contacts Hummery and gives him the family Gospel, telling him that Gutenberg's secret is hidden in the Black River. Hummery, now a master in the Guild of Alchemists and Typesetters, uses the Guild to pass down the symbols and legend of the Black River, but doesn't pass on the Gospel because he sees it as just a part of what he inherited, and not related to the mystery. The Gospel is passed down, lost, and eventually comes to America where it is donated to the LDS library in 1983. No one knows what it contains until Peter and Maddie discover it on their visit, all because Peter's alias - Bjorn Wyrich - is mentioned in a search of the family name as being in a family Bible at LDS.

A little more alchemy

2009-05-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

I still need a small alchemical detail worked out. I need to know the formula for lead type. I hope I can look it up. If not, I would need the volume by weight of the three metals (lead, tin, antimony) when liquid and when solid. With those numbers, I should be able to determine the % of each that is needed to create a dimensionally stable alloy.

I'm pretty sure how to do this with Antimony and either one of the other metals:
aV₁T + bV₁A = aV₂T + bV₂A where a and b are the percentage or number of units and V₁T is the volume of tin when liquid per unit and V₂T is the volume of tin when solid per unit. V₁A is the volume of antimony per unit when liquid and V₂A is the volume of antimony per unit when solid.

Then I compute the same formula for Lead and Antimony. Once I have two dimensionally stable alloys, a 50/50 mix of the two alloys should result in a third dimensionally stable alloy of all three metals. So, for example, if the ratio of Tin to Antimony is 3:1 and the ratio of lead to Antimony is 5:1, then the total formula would be 3 parts tin, 5 parts Lead, and 2 parts Antimony. I'd like to see how close the actual formula is to the previously solved formula for a 3 part alloy that is equal inweight per volume to Silver (.803005305cm³ Lead + .105459050cm³ Tin + <.091535645cm³ Antimony result result in 1 cm³ alloy equal in weight to 1 cm³ Silver.

Idea for a movie

2009-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick idea for a movie script I'm thinking of and don't want to forget. It's called "The Story Not Told." The concept is that there is a pretty good and clear noire detective story -- in fact I might even set it in the 40s or 50s. It's a first person narrative with voice-over. We follow the detective as he pieces together his puzzle, but in almost every shot there is a different cast acting out a completely different story in the background. Some of the characters overlap, so they come into focus as part of the story the detective is telling, but the untold story is unfolding in the background and in the wasted scenes of most movies. It is the people passing in the park, kissing in a doorway, seen at the hospital, or in the bar, and at the police station. So the key will be to have the other story unfold completely and with a full resolution without any scenes or dialog actually attributed to it. Yeah!

Turkish phrases

2009-04-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Thank you -tesekkur ederim (tea sugar dream)
French is also acceptable
dilli kasarli - roasted tongue sandwich served by a Turkish fast food chain.

Back to the urgency and motivation

2009-04-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

Ptolemy's manuscript records the creation of the Djinn. It makes it clear that the so-called fire-spirits are actually his djinja, modeled after the Japanese ninja warriors.

In the Quran, Mohammed states specifically that the djinn were created of fire by Allah. Since the Quran is an absolute text, an outright error in any detail would cast doubt on the whole book, especially since Ptolemy writes nearly a millenium before Mohammed.

Somehow, the rumor of this text has set a sect of Islamic fundamentalists on its scent. Their intent, in order to preserve the infallibility of the Quran, is to destroy all evidence of the manuscript, including the Djinn who still guard it. "The Voice" is attempting to 1)reach the Djinn first with a weapon that will repel the jihad, yet be as traceless as the Djinn themselves; and 2) to get the manuscript and expose Islam as a fraud using the writings of Ptolemy.

Protecting the Djinn will be common cause for The Voice, Peter & Maddie, and Homeland Security, however both Detective Allan and Peter want to keep the discovery secret and not discredit one of the world's largest religions. The Guild just wants to keep the library safe, like the Djinn.

It is possible that Gutenberg did not invent movable type printing and transfer it to the Djinn to preserve the books. It is possible that the process was invented by the Djinn and given to Gutenberg as part of a plan to make the library indestructible by sheer proliferation of books throughout the world. It would fit with both the timing and the process, and Gutenberg would have hidden the secret location of the library in his own code. That is what the librarians have been doing for the two millenia of the library at the time of Gutenberg. They have been desperately trying to make copies of the texts (even extending the task to the scriptoria of the monasteries) in order to get enough books distributed through the world that they cannot be destroyed. Gutenberg improves the process (dimensionally stable alloy, for example), but essentially is just an extension of the library himself. The Library of Alexandria is distributed throughout the world now, not just held in a single building.

Overall, beating the jihad to the Djinn to protect them and the library creates the urgency that was needed to make this a constant thriller.

Bits for the first section of ancient history

2009-03-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

About 285 BCE, the Greek scholar Hecataeus visited the tomb of Ramses II in Thebes. He translated the inscription on the statue as "I am Ramses, king of kings. Whoever wishes to know how great I am and where I am to be found, let him surpass one of my works."

Ramses had himself portrayed beside a lion. Some priests said he had tamed a lion and it was his companion. Others say it simply portrayed his boldness of spirit.

Circa 300BCE, Ptolemy I Soter started the library. He was joined by Demetrius Poliorcetes of Macedon ~287. Between 287 and 283 (the year of their deaths) the library had grown to over 200,000 volumes, including the Torah. In 285, Ptolemy I associated his son to the throne. In retirement, his focus was entirely on his library, including building up the force of Djinn that would protect it. The seating of his son was contrary to the advice of Demetrius. When Ptolemy I died, Ptolemy II set about to rid himself of Demetrius and had him assassinated in a remote inland village.

Aristeas was an Alexandrian Jew who worked in the library with Demetrius. He was a valued diaskenastes (curator of texts) who kept his membership in the Jewish community secret while pressing Demetrius (and by extension, Ptolemy) to include the Jewish texts (laws) in the library. The captains of Ptolemy's bodyguard were Sosibius of Tarentum and Andrew.

Tarentum was a colony founded by the bastards of Spartan women who were conceived while the Spartan men were away at war. This is a great background for an elite warrior class! So, Andrew will be given the guardianship of Ptolemy II Philladelphus, and Sosibius will be given charge of founding the elite Djinn guardians of the library. How cool is that?

Chapter 2 of "Gutenberg's Other Book" will be 283 BCE, the founding of the Djinn.

Ptolemy will discover a record that arrives from the Far East (India) that tells of a fierce group of fighters on an island kingdom who can disappear at will. These are called the Djinja. He will extol Sosibius of the nature of this force who will become the heart of the desert, beating with fire and guarding the true empire of thought contained in the library. Since they are not Egyptian by nature, their kingdom will not be limited to Egypt, but will extend across all the deserts of Africa, Asia, and Syria. They are to search the deserts for the right place to hold the library and see that it continues to grow with the accumulated knowledge of mankind.

What is the order of the ancient backstory

2009-03-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

~323BC Ptolemy I takes the throne of Egypt and founds the library. Created the Jinn.

~70BC Antiochus starts (continues?) The underground building at Mt. Nemrud.

~48BC Julius Caesar burns the ships and part of the docks at Alexandria, including 50,000 books.

~300AD Carthage sacks Rome, carries away the Temple Treasure.

~529AD Justinian defeats Carthage and carries the Temple treasure back to Constantinople. Later ordered returned to Jerusalem.

641AD Emir Amrou Ibn el-Ass receives instruction from Caliph Omar to burn the books of Alexandria, saying "As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed, then, and destroy them." (The Vanished Library, Luciano Canfora)

~1460AD Gutenberg founds the typeworkers guild to protect the secret location of the library.

Do I take them in the historical order, or can I pull them up as they are appropriate tot he story? Can I keep the ancient story straight if it is not chronological?

Who else should be in the story?

There aren't enough characters to keep it interesting yet. Who is the betrayor and who is the betrayed? What is the urgency? Is the bad guy destroying a manuscript for every day the library is not found? What about the ambiguity between looking for one scroll and the whole library? When does it change? or does it?

The urgency!

What if The Voice is pushing Peter & Maddie to find the library not only for his own purposes, but because an Islamic sect has targeted the Jinn for destruction because their founding papers show that the Jinn are not a separate creation of Allah, but are an elite cadre of guards created by Ptolemy to protect the library through both stealthy warriorship and cunning. They are to become invisible, striking where there is no sign of a strike, and moving the library as it is necessary to do so. They are to acquire and manage the books secretly. The urgency is to beat the Islamic Jihad to the library to protect it from destruction - the completion of the job that Amrou began.

Elements of a Thriller

2009-03-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Not an exhaustive list, I'm sure. This is just some of the things that I've discovered from reading them and that I've heard from people who know a lot more than I do.

The hero is usually reluctant, pushed into his role, and eventually accepting.

Something significant is at stake or the risk from failing is staggering.

There is a time restraint.

There is uncertainty regarding who is a friend or foe, a sense of betrayal (either real or imagined), and an isolation of the hero from everything he was counting on for success.

There seems to be a potential for reward and a threat of punishement both; the hero may have to sacrifice the reward in order to succeed; i.e. give the glory to someone else, save a friend rather than the reward, or keep his involvement a secret.

It seems to help if the hero is plagued by self-doubt and seems unable to complete the task. It also helps if the stakes increase at each milestone. The character of the hero and other players must be uncovered in layers, however, unlike the tragic hero,t he fatal flaw in the hero must ultimately save him rather than destroy him. The story of Oedipus Rex may have thrilling elements, but you can't really cheer for Oedipus because no matter how noble he tries to be, he is creating his own doom. He is never truly redeemed.

Here are some entertaining resources on writing thrillers by people who are a lot smarter than I am.

What I've learned about writing thrillers from reading Dr Seuss by Jeremy Duns

Secrets to Writing Best-selling Thrillers by Gayle Lynds

Thriller Fest 2006 - Gayle Lynds

Mystery Writer

Christianity vs. Islam in fiction

2009-03-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

Can an author treat Islam the way they treat Christianity in fiction? In "The DaVinci Code," Brown creates a secret societ that is protecting the identity of the last scion and the remains of Mary Magdalene. This would prove, somehow, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship, and destroy some fundamentals of Christianity. In "The Testament," van Lustbader's secret society is protecting a manuscript that is the testament of Jesus himself that would indicate that he raises the dead by annointing them with the quintessence and was in turn raised by his disciples using the same alchemical formula. This would prove he wasn't God.

So could you suggest the same kind of scenario regarding Mohammed? Is there so much difference between Christian and Moslem that essentially mocking the icons of either would result in insanely different reactions? With Christians, books get condemned, maybe even banned. Someone speaks out against it in outrage. The author says, "It's fiction," and it all fades away. "Satanic Verses" - obviously a fiction/fantasy story - suggests something fishy about the Ayatollah and suddenly there's a fatwah on Rushdie.

So the question is, can you treat religion equally across the board as a subject for fiction, or are there some religions that are simply so volatile that you risk your life touching them?

Learning from Van Lustbader Part 4- final

2009-03-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

I've finished reading "The Testament" by Eric van Lustbader. He's a great storyteller and kept things moving. It was a pretty good read. I'm not sure what the final body count was. Somewhere in the vicinity of 20 or so - though I lost track of exactly how many about half-way through - most described in visceral detail. While I enjoyed the context of two rival religious orders, I have to believe that there is another way of writing a thriller other than "kill or be killed" at the end of each chapter.

Another issue for me, however, is that even though Brav's classical education and expertise in manuscripts gave him context for medieval history, it really didn't help himsolve the problems. He did that with his code-breaking skills and fists. And even with the code-breaking skills, it seems likely that Bravo would not have succeeded had his father not specifically written the clues based on his experiencess with his son.

In "Gutenberg's Other Book," we have a series of clues that were created five hundred years ago with the assumption that someday someone would make sense of it. The clues are embedded in rituals that have lost all current meaning. The protection of the cache itself is given to a completely separate organization that might not even know the clues exist. Normally that would require a scholar to sit in a library with dozens of reference books and manuscripts, puzzling over what is a clue and what isn't for a few years before anyone even got around to trying to decipher them. That has always been the mystery of "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli," for example. Does the book hold the clues to find a hidden treasure or not?

In this respect, then, G.O.B. more closely resembles "National Treasure or "Indiana Jones" than it does "The Testament" or "The DaVinci Code." The clues have all been here unchanged for five hundred years. They weren't designed for this person to decipher. Now without world domination at stake, nor the precious beliefs of a particular religious group threatened, what paints the urgency to find the cache on a daily basis. Why does it have to be found in a week or a month or a year?

Learning from Van Lustbader - Part 3

2009-03-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

Reading "The Testament" has made me very tired of the "mounting body count" method of making something a thriller. I'd really like to do "Gutenberg's Other Book" without a casualty. Might not be possible, but I have in mind that my antagonist (The Voice) will say something like "Kill innocent people? No. Murder is the result of not being able to solve your problems." He may go on to say that Peter's friends and family would all ive, but would suffer for the rest of their lives and blame Peter for it.

That puts me in mind of another story I'd like to write. What if no one died? Suddenly, people just stop dying. They didn't stop aging or become instantly healthy. They just stopped dying. Wars would cease to have meaning because no one dies. However, far from being happy, people continue to become more and more miserable as the quality of life deteriorates.

Some things that might happen include the government experimenting on people to try to kill them and inadvertently creating a race of wraiths -- people who have been utterly destroyed, but still live. These become a malevolent army. People try to commit suicide, but end up more miserable than before because they are unable to die. People sue the government to get death back. People become disillusioned with religion that promises eternal life. All people want is for it all to end.

Well, that's another story.

Learning from van Lustbader-Part 2

2009-03-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

The Testament	Gutenberg's Other Book
Bravo/Jenny: She was his father's lover?? They fall in love/have sex He thinks she must be the traitor	Peter/Maddie: She was raised to be his match They fall in love/have sex She is (unwittingly) the traitor
Bravo/Jordan: Best Friends Jordan is using him On opposite sides	Peter/The Voice: Enemies from the start Peter doesn't know who he is Has a hold on Maddie
Observatines/Knights: Started by the church Secularized Competing for the same cache of info	Gutenbergs/Aldines: Two competing guils Secular with religious rituals Competing for the same cache
The Testament of Jesus Christ and the quintessence that shows Jesus was human and not divine and can give immortality to a person	The Library of Alexandria containing the Wisdom of Ptolemy showing the origin of the Jinn and casting doubt on Islam

Gee. Can you do that?

Where I want to go with "Gutenberg's Other Book:" More intellectual, less life threatening. I'd be just as happy if there wasn't a body count. Peter and Maddie will never kill anyone. Peter and Maddie are not trained in hand-to-hand combat. They really only have their wits. No superpowers. No eidetic memory. No savant code-breaking ability. They are scholars who may have to fight for their lives, but they just have to be clever about it. They do have the ability to use alternate identities.

They have the power of the press. They may need to exploit their ability to print or have things printed.

There are two rival secret societies that will surface. Peter is a member of one. Maddie may be a member or at least a pawn of the other. Maddie has been trained from childhood to be everything that Peter wants. He is everything that she wants. She betrays him -- accidentally or through conflicted loyalties. They have to be separated and get back together at a critical moment.

The treasure is different, but the same. I'll probably abandon the quest for the alchemical powder that enables the making of the Philosopher's Stone that van Lustbader calls the quintessence. The particular scroll they are after does hold alchemical secrets, but the real crux is that it will somehow change our perception of reality. First, it does or may hold content that casts doubt on both the New Testament and the Quran. Second, it shows the establishment of the Jinn. And third it gives a version of the fall (Adam & Eve) that makes it obvious that there is another power at work in the universe. Whether it is supernatural, alien, or alchemical, I don't know yet.

Peter/Robert: Policeman tailing Peter
Peter is oblivious of him
Robert turns out to be his savior

Learning from van Lustbader-Part 1

2009-03-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

Probably some spoilers here if you are planning to read "The Testament" run along now.

First let me say I'm enjoying the read because I like a thriller and van Lustbader knows how to write them. His book, "The Testament," has a lot of similarities to the concept I've been describing in my posts this year about "Gutenberg's Other Book." An ancient book, scroll, or fragment, is of high interest because it could give some person or persons unlimited power of some sort. So, as I read it, I am trying to carefully pick out the differences and similarities. It's pretty easy to get caught up in the story and ignore what gets you involved.

Von Lustbader knows how to write a thriller. We have the element of starting off with a secret message and having the one person who knows everything killed. From there on, we have a constant chase with a fight, a death, a near-death, another death, or a crisis in every chapter as the hero is drawn deeper and deeper into the plot, against his will.

Second, there is the hero and his partner. Both are highly skilled and trained for rugged survival and for breaking codes and ciphers. It helps that Bravo, like Robert Langdon in "The DaVinci Code," has an eidetic memory and never has to write anything down. So, we have a hero who is initiated into a religious sect. He has highly honed physical combat and survival skills, can break any cipher or code, and remembers everything. His partner is a woman with which there is a strong sexual magnetism. She is already a member of the sect, trained even more in combat than he is because she is his guardian. She is strong and competent while at the same time exhibiting uncertainty and emotional fragility. Both have potentially damaging secrets in their pasts.

Next, there is the element of time. The hero has to find the secret cache and protect it before the bad guys find it and use it for evil. Triggered by an impending death of the pope. The bad guys know that only the hero can find the cache in time, so they manipulate him to ever greater speed. This ignores the concept that they would be better off not looking for the cache so they wouldn't lead the enemy to it.

So, mapping out the basics we have

Observatines	Knights	Vatican
Bravo & Jenny	Jordan & Camille	Cardinal/Pope
Male & Female dichotomy	Knights/Church split	Deathbed
A traitor in their midst	Independence movement	Threat to doctrine
A murdered father & other dead guys	Lots of dead guys
Manipulating the world for good with information	Wanting world domination & immortality

Antiochus

2009-02-28T18:29:00.000-08:00

"If he in his folly of mind undertakes measures contrary to the honor of the gods and attempts to ravage this hierothesion, may he - even without my curse - suffer the full wrath of the gods." - Antiochus

Kommagene is on the western shore of the Euphrates. It was first a land of the Hittites and then the Persians. Kommagene became an independent kingdom in 163 BCE. It had lots ofiron mines and was of high strategic value. The king fortified Samosata on the shores of the Euphrates as his capital, making it the most important point on the Euphrates. When the Attaturk Dam was built, the site was flooded.

About 70 B.C. Antiochus was crowned king at Mt. Nemrud - apparently while his faterh was still alive. about 69 BCE, Armenia defeated Pergamum and left Kommagene between the Roman and Parthian Empires. Zayuma on the Euphrates was given to Antiochus by Pompeii. From 62-36 BCE, the kingdom under Antiochus enjoyed peace and calm, enabling him to complete the massive monument on Mt. Nemrud. He built a nationwide cult reform portraying himself as a fellow of the gods. It was designed to homogenize the population between the east and west.

Picoras of Parthia crossed the Euphrates to invade Rome. Antiochus joined his son-in-law Picoras and Marc Anthony marched on Samosata. Archers (and black clad calvary???) picked off the Romans and defeated Marc Anthony. Antiochus gave Anthony 100 talents of silver as a consolation prize and Anthony retreated with what was left of his army. By 32 BC, Mithrodates II was on the throne.

in 72 CE, Emperor Vespasian annexed Kommagene and made it a part of Syria call Euphrasia.

These notes were gleaned from the movie Mount Nemrud The Throne of the Gods.

Archeology and topology

2009-02-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

According to archeologist Teresa Goell's topographic map, surveyed by H. Brokamp in 1953-56, the mountain is pretty broad. The depth of the structure would be pretty impervious to showing up on the soundings they took inthe 90s.

Please follow link to http://www.learningsites.com.
The soundings discovered two or three (a little uncertain how the readings correlate) hollow spots according to the movie Mt. Nemrud, Throne of the Gods. One is high in the tumulus. The second is 45 feet below the west terrace. Archealogists have speculated that the upper may be the burial chamber and the lower might be some sort of reservoir or drainage basin.

IMHO, from the pictures, if the upper is the burial chamber, then it was designed to be found if someone decided to dig in the tumulus. Of course, finding the chamber whould end excavation, thus protecting anything further down. If the second anomally is a reservoir, then what does it serve, other than as a year-round source of water for those deep in the rock.

I believe that there is probably no one left living in the library now. It has been 500 years since Gutenberg, and he may have brought the last bit of technology needed to complete the copyists' task.

Where did all the rubble come from?

2009-02-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

Is the rubble that makes up the tumulus at the top of Mt. Nemrud nothing more than what it took to level the top of the mountain and then pile up the dome? We have no record of what the mountain looked like before construction began. A few miles east and slightly north, near Lake Van, there is a second Mt. Nemrud that is an active volcano, last erupted in the mid 1600s. It is over 9,500 feet tall. It has a flat top with a caldera lake in it. What if the Throne of the Gods Mt. Nemrud was also fairly flat, even a caldera of some couple of hundred feet in depth. A great pyramid was built in it, actually excavated another two or three hundred feet deep. As the sloping sides of the pyramid were built, the rubble was piled up outside. The volume of the tumulus is equal to the volume of the rock removed to build the pyramid and to level the rim of the caldera.

I suppose it would be a pretty unbelivable feat of engineering to build a pyramid underground. It would be an easier digging feat to invert the pyramid, but that would necessitate building a roof that would support the tumulus. On the other hand, combining the two concepts might work. You dig down to an incredible depth and build the inverted pyramid, then build the regular pyramid on top of it.

Okay, so the biggest problem with this is that you have to quarry the entire excavation first and then build inside it. Why? You'd have to store allt he blocks of stone and then lower them back into the hole tobuild the structure, back-filling as you go.

There is really no reason that the project would need to take any less effort than the building of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt. In fact, it could leave even less trace of local inhabitation than the pyramids due to its remoteness. The labor could have come from any number of sources for slaves.

In ~36 BCE, Antiochus was strong enough that he could repel the Roman army led by Marc Anthony. A hundred years later, in 72 CE, the Romans marched through Komagene with scarcely any resistance, and did not even know about the Throne of the Gods. Suppose the difference was the state of the concealment of the resting place of the library, designed by Ptolemy I. The move would have been executed by Ptolemy VIII, father of Cleopatra before Caesar & Pompei came to Egypt. Antiochus negotiated with Pompei, avoided Caesar, and defeated Marc Anthony.

The next problem, whatever the engineering feat, is that there has to be a continuing opening or access to the structure underground that enables the use of the library after the top of the mountain was sealed. Somehow the location has to have been disclosed to Gutenberg in order for him to have concealed it in the map and in the printers' marks. I'm thinking that the access point is several miles away, near the Euphrates. They need water and access to food.

So, some thousands of laborers over a period of one to three centuries, excavate a mountain, quarry the building stone, build an underground pyramid, backfill it with rubble and bury a king on top of it so that should it ever be excavated the burial champer would be found and no further excavation attempted, all without being noticed or investigated by anyone who survived to tell about it. And for two thousand years since then, a cult has lived in the structure, preserving the documents and guarding the mountain against discovery. -- Easy!

The risks of finding the library

2009-02-26T12:04:00.000-08:00

In order to protect the accumulated knowledge of the world, no one who enters the library since it left Alexandria has ever been allowed to leave. For that reason, Gutenberg was allowed access to only a few manuscripts so he could teach the art of printing. The map he took away was done in secret. That will also make it difficult for Peter and Maddie to leave once they have gained access. It is only through the attack on the location by their antagonist and the help of the detective that they manage to escape. The Jinn are destroyed as well as the entrance to the library. Everyone and everything is sealed inside.

It's possible that they are kidnapped. They are probably taken into the library as prisoners who have been kiidnapped. They think they have been captured by thePKK, but it is actually the Jinn. Instead of finding the route in, they are literally dragged in. Does that work?

The ancient backstory

2009-02-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to weave the backstory of the Library of Alexandria in without actually being there. In other words, having people tell each other what they know about it in the book would be less effective that having chapters set in that time. I should consider flashbacks to various historic periods, like Ptolemy's. This seems to work well as in intro to Van Lustbader's The Testament, but I think he uses it only as a prologue. I have in mind taking it through the centuries, gradually. So there would be a scene of Ptolemy discussing his desire to have 500,000 scrolls in his library and how he intended to use the Jinn to protect them. Then there might be a scene of the Pergtamum Library and the endeavor to get the Aristotle books. Next a scene of Caesar burning Alexandria. Then the Carthoginians sacking Rome. We would get Justinian bringing the Temple Treasure to Constantinople. Somewhere, of course we need the building of the monument on Mt. Nemrud, the Ottoman takeover of Istanbul, and ultimately Gutenberg's trip and assignment. There should also be a scene of the Aldusians.

I'm thinking I should scatter these scenes throughout the book. That will give me a sense of the historicity of the piece and will also allow me to follow the Jinn and how they go about gathering and moving the scrolls. They have actually been guarding the library for 2400 years.

So, I'm thinking that my first bit of this backstory would come after the first explosion. I need to gain some perspective, but I don't like the idea of making it a prologue.

Luciano Canfora's book, The Vanished Library (University of California Press, 1989), is a great resource and survey of the extant documents that talk about the library and a historical perspective through about 10 centuries. It's fascinating reading if you get a chance.

Back to the Jinn

2009-02-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Here's an idea on how I could incorporate the Jinn without slipping into Urban Fantasy. I decided that was really what separated Indiana Jones from The DaVinci Code. Each Indiana Jones movie has had an ultra-sensory experience. We had the magical properties of the lost Ark, some guy who could coax your heart out of your chest, the Holy Grail's healing powers, and finally, an alien spaceship. DaVinci Code had the last descendant of Jesus, but nothing supernatural about that.

So, the fire spirit references to the Jinn are used to establish a framework, but they never come on the scene to either save the day or ruin things. Instead, there is an elite cadre of guards, equivalent to the Templar Knights, who are direct descendants of say, the saracens. This very small and elite group take their name from the Jinn, whom they revere. For nearly sex centuries (or more) they have guarded and protected the tomb at Nemrud and the library hidden beneath it.

Do they want to keep it hidden? Or are they waiting for the right person to come along to open it and return it to the world? Perhaps the person who connects the marks will be the one they give control to.

This kind of loyal, dedicated squad probably has to get wiped out in order to complete the story. They become the last of the Jinn.

Need research on what the ancestry is, how long they've been at Nimrud, perhaps descendants of the king's personal guard. Need more info.

Ultrasonic bomb?

2009-02-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Ultrasonic vibrations can be very tightly focused and directed. They can create heat almost like a microwave. When directed at one item, they can transfer through items that it touches. We might be able to heat the glass with the sound waves as well, or even use a microwave transmission.

Do the Jinn want to play?

2009-02-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

I have new information and don't yet know what to do with it. It has to do with the Jinn. Jinn are the spirits that Allah created out of fire before he created man. Not really demons, they can become Moslems and will enter heaven on the day of resurrection or enter hell.

Jinn also play a part in Moslem Alchemy. This might be why the one Moslem who succeeded in the quest for the philosopher's stone, then walked away from it. Ptolemy was supposed to be able to summon the fire spirits as well, though in Egypt in general the Jinn weren't really acknowledged until Islam.

Among the responsibilities of the Jinn is guarding the tomb. Some of the more powerful - Afreets - are also said to haunt graveyards, gnawing on the bones of the dead. Marids - the most powerful Jinn - cause great damage and mischief, even physical injury.

So I have a king's tomb at Nemrud. That is where the library has been moved. Ptolemy's book is in the library. Do the Jinn guard both the tomb and the libarary that contain the secrets of how to use them for Alchemy?

The real question is whether I want to let the story enter the metaphysical realms and treat both Alchemy and Jinn as real things that might be encountered on this adventure?

All about Maddie

2009-02-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

What is Maddie's secret? How is The Voice able to control her? I'm struggling to find her in all of this. Some of the ideas that I'm testing include

The Voice is her father.

The Voice is holding her son/daughter hostage.

She is complicit with The Board (and The Voice) and is a willing participant hoping to get the secret for herself.

She followed the teachings of grandpa but fell in with the wrong group.

She was raised to be a foil to Peter and then unleashed.

I desperately want her to be innocent, but I know that Peter at one point will believe she is the enemy. I think Maddie was raised by a booklover, whether The Voice or not. She was a subscriber to Grandpa's magazine, which means she's about the same age as Peter. (He could be younger than I thought since I don't think DTP will enter into the story after all.)

She definitely learned her love of ancient manuscripts and desire to study printing from the magazine. She was pretty punk as a teen and into college. The rituals of the guild appealed to her on a goth or punk level.

Does she have a fairly normal family life? Is one parent a kind of stepchild to the guild who fills her head with stories that she later uses to gain admittance? There are really only a few things I can think of that would motivate her.

she has family, maybe child,, that is at risk if she doesn't obey

She cheated on her dissertation and would be ruined if she were found out

She committed some crime and will be sent to prison if it is discovered

An abusive former boyfriend or husband is somehow manipulating her

She is part of a truly insane religious cult

She fled an Islamic country and will be returned to a man she was married to at age 10

A location!

2009-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

It turns out that Mt. Nemrut might be the best location. It is a popular toursit attraction built to honor the goodness of a king and his special relationship with the gods. It has lots of broken statues. It's 7,000 feet in altitude. It doesn't require special permission to get into and is fairly isolated from the war zones. It would be easy to have symbols hidden among the ruins that would guide them to the secret entrance to the library which would be underground where the king is buried. In fact, the origin of the marks might be in the site. I've already verified Star, Crescent, and Pyramid. A deep earthquake caused by the sound generator that breaks all the glass would entomb the library and anyone in it permanently.

Nemrut Dag (Mt Nemrud) is a mountain measuring 2,150meters in height. It is located near the village of Karadut in Kahta county in the province of Adiyaman. Kings of the Kommagene dynasty from 80 B.C. to 72 A.D ruled Adiyaman and its vicinity. This kingdom, whose capital was Samosata (now called Samsat), was founded around 80 B.C. by Mithridates 1, father of Antiochos 1.

The kingdom's independence came to an end with its defeat by Roman legions in the last of the Kommagene wars and it became part of the Roman province of Syria. At its height, Kommagene extended from the Toros (Taurus) mountains on the north to the Firat (Euphrates) river on the east and southeast, to present-day Gaziantep on the south, and to the county of Pazarcik in Kahramanmaras on the west. The magnificent ruins on the summit of Mt Nemrud are not those of an inhabited site however. They are instead the famous tumulus (burial mound) and hierotheseion (a word that is derived from Greek and refers to the sacred burial precinct of the royal family, and whose use is known only in Kommagene) of King Antiochos I of Kommagene, who ruled from 69 to 36 B.C.

In a cult inscription, King Antiochos declares that he had the site built for the ages and generations that were to follow him "as a debt of thanks to the gods and to his deified ancestors for their manifest assistance". The king also declares that his aim was to provide for the people an "example of the piety that the gods commanded be shown towards the gods and towards ancestors.

"Professor K. Dorner has traced the genealogy of Antiochos 1, who was himself born of a Persian father and a Seleucid-Macedonian mother. His findings indicate that Antiochos I of Commagene claimed descent, through his father Mithridates, from Dareios (Darius) 1 (522-486 B.C.) and, through his mother Laodike, from Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)

Mt Nemrud is located 100 kms from Adiyaman. No reference is made to it in ancient sources. Karl Sester, a German road engineer, rediscovered it in modern times in 1881. An expedition to Mt Nemrud was organized in 1882-83 by Karl Humann and Otto Puchstein, who published their findings in a book entitled Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin 1890). Osman Hamdi Bey and Osgan Effendi also investigated the site in 1883 and their findings were published in a book entitled Le Tumulus de Nemroud Dagh (Istanbul 1883). F. Karl Dorner and Rudolf Naumann mounted an expedition to Mt Nemrud in 1938. Dorner returned to the site after 1951 and began working there with the US researcher Teresa Goell.

In 1984, a Turkish-German team led by Professor Dorner successfully carried out restoration work at the site. Excavation and restoration work has been continuing since 1989 under the direction of Sencer Sahin. In 1989, Nemrut Dag and its environs were declared a national park. The tumulus on the summit of Mt Nemrud measures 50 meters high and covers an area 150 meters in diameter. It is formed from stones the size of a fist and is bounded on the east, west, and north by terraced courts carved out of the native rock. The eastern court was the center of the sacred precinct and is the most important group of sculptural and architectural works. It is surrounded on the west by colossal statues, on the east by a fire altar in the shape of a stepped pyramid, and on the north and south by low walls of orthostats (upright stone slabs) standing on a long, narrow base.

http://www.adiyamanli.org/mt_nemrut.htm.

Where is the library hidden?

2009-02-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Getting to a known location might be easier than picking a random cave in SE Turkey. Say for example, Mt. Ararat. You could also have a Biblical clue from Genesis for that. Then the map might be of just the mountain with the symbols hidden to mark the route. No additional borders to cross either.

ANSWER:

Great info on State Department Web site on traveling in Turkey. Quite dangerous. Lots of terrorist attacks. Recommends only flying not driving or public transportation. Go out only during day. Southeast and Ararat are the most dangerous areas.

Who's who?

2009-02-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

The detective's name is Robert Allen. While that sounds quite English, he is actually of Kurdish ancestry. In the areas of Kurdish Turkey or Iraq, the name would be Robar Alan. His Kurdish ancestry will work both for and against him. He may run into immigration problems upon entering Turkey, but th econsulate will halp him there. In Kurdistan, he may run into relatives.

Actually getting into Kurdistan might create problems for Peter as well. It is a war zone. The Kurds are fighting for independence. Turkey has renewed its authorization to attack separatist outposts in Iraq. The Kurds extend into Iran as well.

Questions:

If I wanted to follow the Silk Road from Istanbul to China, what Visas and permissions would I have to have?

Does the Silk Road map to any regular auto routes across Turkey and Iran today?

What would be the best mode of transportation to get from Istanbul to the Iran border?

What would be the most likely sect to be guarding the ancient scrolls? Sufi? Zorastrian? Christian? Sunni? Shiite? Other?

Now that we have the symbols, what do they mean and how are they used?

Printers' Marks

2009-02-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

Here is a great reference from Project Gutenberg on Printers' Marks.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Printers' Marks, by William Roberts

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Printers' Marks
A Chapter in the History of Typography
Author: William Roberts
Release Date: June 1, 2008 [EBook #25663]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINTERS' MARKS ***
Produced by Louise Hope, Stephen Hope and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

THERE are few phases of typography open to the charge of being neglected. An unquestionable exception occurs, however, in relation to Printers’ Marks. This subject is in many respects one of the most interesting in connection with the early printers, who, using devices at first purely as trade marks for the protection of their books against the pirate, soon began to discern their ornamental value, and, consequently, employed the best available artists to design them. Many of these examples are of the greatest bibliographical and general interest, as well as of considerable value in supplementing an important class of illustrations to the printed books, and showing the origin of several typical classes of Book-plates (Ex-Libris). The present Handbook has been written with a view to supplying a readable but accurate account of this neglected chapter in the history of art and bibliography; and it appeals with equal force to the artist or collector. Only one book on the subject, Berjeau’s “Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks,” has appeared in this viii country, and this, besides being out of print and expensive, is destitute of descriptive letterpress. The principle which determined the selection of the illustrations is of a threefold character: first, the importance of the printer; secondly, the artistic value or interest of the Mark itself; and thirdly, the geographical importance of the city or town in which the Mark first appeared.

If I've correctly interpreted the publication date, it is 1893. He seems to have much more interest in later or "contemporary" marks than in the incunabula, but there is a fair share of those as well. It is an interesting read with lots and lots of samples.

Printers' Marks

2009-02-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Great new breakthrough as I was making notes last night. There are a certain number of printers' marks from which most are derived (fiction). The last degree of mastery in the lore of the guild are the knowledge of the meaning of the 7, 12, or 13 basic marks. These are the marks that will guide Peter and Maddie to the final source. You have to have both the map and the key. The Printers' Marks are the key. Here are possibilities for the basic marks based on my investigation so far.

The Flag

The Anchor

The Disk or Orb

The Cross or St. Albans' Cross

The Caduceus or Double-Helix

The Lozenge

The Spade or Shield

The Pyramid or Triangle

The Chalice or Bowl

The Scroll

The Sword

The Diamond

The Fleur-de-lis

The Castle

The Heart

The final selection will all be unadorned so that no human or animal is portrayed (idolatry) and excludes initials or monograms. I have a fairly large collection of marks that I'll post for illustration as soon as I get them scanned.

Interestingly, Gutenberg himself did not use a mark. The first was the double flag used by Schoeffer and Fust for the Mainz Psalter.

Scenes 9 & 10

2009-02-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

Scene 9: Peter Maddie need to get out of the country and head to Turkey, via Mainz. Peter's refusal to "report in" to The Voice causes the Voice to turn up the heat a bit and blow something up or get the police on them. Peter gets another picture of Maddie, and now one of his mother and grandfather as well. Peter looks at a map of Germany and tells the Voice that he needs to find the source of Die Schwarze Fluss in Germany. In reality, he has decided to mobilize the Guild and catches a plane to Frankfurt. He needs more clues as to where the map leads.

Scene 10: A meeting of the guild in Mainz, DE. Maddie is inducted into the first degree of the guild so she can participate. Induction included a tatoo. Also other rites that are performed. From there, they go into an analysis of the map and work out the starting point as Istanbul. They work out that there will be a printer's mark that will lead them to the treasure. They also come up with a hint as to what the treasure is. They have full access to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. Something in there will give them a vital clue. Note: I need the catalog of documents in the Gutenberg Museum.

Secret Map Realization: They don't really have to connect the dots. That's why you need to have all 12 pages. If you overlay all the dots you get the whole picture. The dots fill in.

Currently working on an expanded outline for the book, working in more characters, sub-plots, and misdirections.

Connect the dots, library security, the silk road

2009-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

It seems as though I need a library security expert. The Scheide has declined to offer any assistance because of security concerns. The only reason that the Scheide is of particular interest is because that is where the only American Bamberg is located. This will require some creative thinking and a library security resource.

The Scheide Bamberg was originally in the Benedictine convent in Wurzburg which was acquired 200 years ago by Earl Spencer. Thence to Scheide.

My rare books security system for a library would include a secure locking system, of course. Whenever the alarm is triggered, the doors would seal and lock until released after the environment is secure. The room would then be flooded with an inert, non-flamable gas, replacing all the oxygen in the room (argon?). Of course, that means that all humans in the room die. SO, there are breathing apparati at stations in the room. You have to get into a mask before all the air is pumped out. Since this is so radical, I suggest it only for the vault, where the most valuable documents are kept. For individual documents that are on display, a steel case needs to drop over them and seal them up. Yeah, easy, right?

I need to figure out how to get the order of connect the dots figured out. There is always the chance that they could be in alphabetical order. Start with the dot on A and progress to the dot on B. Problem is that all the letters won't be in the rubric and there is a predominance of "T," or some single letter.

The next thing is that the position of the nick on the character could indicate the direction to the next nick in the order. That might work. No one who would normally see the rubric would think twice about seeing nicked letters or imperfect type since it is not meant ot be read or published, but only to be copied in the order presented to the blank spaces. That seems like the most likely at the moment.

The Silk Road ran from Istanbul (Constantinople) through Turkey & Kurdistan, then Iran, and on. The land route fell into disuse in the 1400s with the closing of China and the Ottoman invasion. It would be quite natural to have the map be of the Silk Road.

New questions

2009-02-02T17:58:00.001-08:00

I wrote to the director of the Scheide Library for help today. I'm not keen on using real locations for the story for obvious reasons, but basing a mythical location on a real one is certainly within bounds, especially since there are only a dozen copies of the Bamberg extant and one is at the Scheide.

Are the volumes at the Scheide in display cases like the British Library?

Is it possible for qualified people to examine the volumes outside the sealed environment in which they are kept?

Is the Scheide inside the firestone Library or a standalone?

Is there much traffic in and out?

Is there a known copy of the rubric for the Bamberg?

Is there an on-line copy or image of the Bamberg?

Where are the other Bambergs?

Where did this one come from?

New scenes

2009-02-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

Scene 7: A mockup of Princeton University and the Scheide Rare Books Library. Peter & Maddie arrive and scout out the location of the four famous Bibles located there. This is the first time they actually decide to break the law and they doit in what would have been a daring and spectacular way if it were not for the other disaster/distraction that occurs simultaneously. They remove all three volumes of The Bamberg Bible (some 150lbs) and take them to their hotel room or other location. They examine the books intently and discover the pages hidden in the binding. These they remove and then place the repaired Bibles in a Frat house so as to look like an inter-frat rivalry prank. Then Peter and Maddie head out.

Scene 8: Peter & Maddie have to figure out the code. They use high res imagery to analyze the pages. Ultimately they discovere the nicks in the type characters. At first they try a cipher, but when that doesn't yield results, Peter absently connects the dots. He realizes there is might be a pattern. That means that my major clue has to include something about not just knowng the stones, but following them. Something about "My secret I have hidden in the Black River and only he who follows the stones may cross to the other side." the key is that they have to overlay the eight sheets to get the actual map. The map won't make too much sense until they overlay it with a 15th centruy map of Eastern Europe. I'm not positive yet, but I think it will lead them into Kurdistan. I foresee the need to introduce a computer expert on their team and possibly a Kurd.

Guild rituals

2009-01-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

The next step here is to establish what the guild rituals are. For that, I needed the formula for Gutenberg's ink, especially to determine the metal content. Here is what I found first:

The ink used by Gutenberg was also a new development. It was not really ink at all, more like a varnish or oil paint. Unlike writing-ink it is oil-based, not based on water. Water-based ink would simply run off the metal types whereas the thick, viscous oil-based varnish sticks to them.

The black colouring of the ink is carbon - perhaps lamp black. Under the microscope, small reflective grains are visible distributed randomly throughout the ink. They are likely to be graphite - highly ordered carbon. These particles may be intended to improve the quality of the ink or be a by-product of the processing of the carbon to make the ink. More information on this analysis.

Gutenberg's printer's ink is distinctive in having a glittering surface. This is because of its high level of metal content, in particular copper, lead and titanium. It also contains sulphur.

The printer's ink was made up in batches, and was of course hand-made. Cyclotron analysis has enabled us to distinguish between batches and that has enabled us to understand much more about how the work was organised in Gutenberg's workshop.
The British Library

This is significantly different from the Iron Gall Ink that Jason mentioned in a previous comment that was used by scribes. It was made from iron salts and tannin from vegetable sources.

The ink was generally prepared by adding some ferrous sulfate (FeSO4) to a solution of gallotannic acid, but any iron ion donor can be used. The tannic acid was usually extracted from oak galls (also known as "oak apples" or more correctly Oak marble galls), or galls of other trees; hence the name. Fermentation or hydrolysis of the extract releases gallic acid, which yields a darker black ink. The fermented extract is combined with the ferrous sulfate and a binder such as gum arabic.

After filtering, the resulting pale-gray solution was used to write on paper or vellum. A well-prepared ink would gradually darken to an intense purplish black. The resulting marks would adhere firmly to the vellum or parchment, and (unlike india ink or other formulas) could not be erased by rubbing or washing — only by actually scraping off a thin layer of the writing surface.

That it can be completely removed was sufficient to allow this ink, or a galloferric ink with added carbon black, (lamp black) to be used in making Torah scrolls - if a letter is ever found cracked, common with a vellum document rolled and rerolled daily, it must be removed in its entirety before it is redrawn for the scroll to remain ritually pure. This has led to many a "red" Torah where over the years the ink reacted with oxygen and changed to a reddish color, which is not kosher for a Sefer Torah (the ink must be black).
Wikipedia

I'm thinking that because of Gutenberg's association with the goldsmith's guild, the secret craftsmen's association that holds the Gutenberg secret is called something to do with precious metals, smithing, and founding. It could be a Smiths and Typefounders Union. Something like "The Worshipful Company of Smiths and Tyhpefounders," or "The Revered Font of Gold and Metal Workers," or "The Secret Council of Engravers and Fontographers."

Isaac Newton believed in the medicinal properties of taking a little Mercury internally each day. I'm guessing that a little heavy metal in the guildmember's diet would be appropriate.

So there would have to be an initiation ritual, obviously. There are lots of different examples of these to draw from. In addition to initiation there is the "Bringing of the Book," the "Inking of the Mark," and the "Taking of an Apprentice." Those four will do for starters. At least one of these includes a communion with ink; one involves tatooing; one involves invocations and presentation of a reading from an ancient book.

Regarding the initiation:

Special rituals and requirements for new members of a group are called initiation rituals. Many social organizations are quite demanding of new members. Anthropologists have a term—mortification rituals—for initiation ceremonies that inflict pain or humiliation or otherwise mortify the new member of the group. To mortify is, literally, to threaten death, and mortification rituals often threaten death either actually or symbolically.

What are mortification rituals? For example, in the initiation ritual for the Freemasons, the candidate is blindfolded and then led around by a rope around his neck. As the candidate approaches the oath of secrecy, the sharp point of a sword is place against his left breast. The Skull and Bones secret society at Yale puts a new member into a coffin. Members chant at him and he is "reborn" into the society.

Mortification rituals encourage the comraderie that results from shared experiences of hardship, familiar to any war veteran. Also, as implied by cognitive dissonance theory, people who sacrifice for a group are more likely to adopt a positive attitude toward the group. Once they have engaged in behavior that implies that group membership is worth paying a high price, they are likely to convince themselves that group membership is very valuable. To feel otherwise would make it hard to explain why they went through the trouble and discomfort involved in joining the group.

Mystery also plays a role in group cohesion. When a new member is recruited to a "secret society" or similar organization, promises are shared, oaths recited, sacred responsibilities pronounced and accepted. Access is allowed to secret writings or places.

Consider the typical graduation ceremony at a college or university. Students and faculty in long flowing robes listen to speakers make weighty pronouncements. Dignitaries hand out scrolls. It is an echo of ancient rites signifying initiation into a guild consisting of the educated elite.
Initiation Rituals

For information on Masonic ritual (old) see Duncan's Masonic Ritual

A name for the guild

2009-01-28T07:49:00.000-08:00

By 1700 (at least, maybe much earlier), the wayzgoose mentioned in my January 26 post was being celebrated on or about August 24, St. Bartholomew's Day. He was the patron of the book binders guild and The Gutenberg Bible was said to have been finished on August 24, 1456.

Now on to names for the rival guilds that might be considered. There is a Worshipful Company of Scriveners in London that is mostly notaries. They do legal document work. (http://www.scriveners.org.uk/) The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is a London Livery company founded in 1403. It was originally booksellers, illuminators, and bookbinders, but by the time the company received its royal charter of incorporation in 1557 it included printers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Stationers_and_Newspaper_Makers)

I'm thinking that my Gutenberg-based guild might be called the Honorable Brotherhood of Scriveners, Typesetters, and Pressmen. The Aldine-based guild would be called the Fraternal Order of Printers and Scribes. These could work out to be important names, so I'll let them stew a while before solidifying it. There are Worshipful Companies, Fraternal Orders, Honorable Brotherhoods, Royal Guilds, Societies, Unions, and Associations. Lots of info regarding the development of Guilds in various countries at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07066c.htm. "Guilds were voluntary associations for religious, social, and commercial purposes. These associations, which attained their highest development among the Teutonic nations, especially the English, during the Middle Ages..."

What the Printers Guild knows

2009-01-26T21:30:00.000-08:00

First - I'm not a Master Printer. I'm familiar with a wide range of printing and publishing technologies and a pretty extensive knowledge of the history of printing. So, understand that this is a fictionalsummation of what could feasibly be hidden in a mystery cult of printers (similar to what The Masons are to masonry & bricklaying.)

From medieval times as far back as the Incunabula (1455-1505) there has been a party or ceremony in the fall - typically October - called a wayzgoose. As it has come down to us, it was a feast given by the printer for his employees that ostensibly marked the beginning of "working by candlelight." This was also the time of initiation. New apprentices were recognized by their masters and new journeymen and master printers were recognized by the Guild. Among the masters, it was also an initiation into the mysteries of printing. It was said that a printer upon this initiation became a master of "the black arts." We have always assumed that the reference was to the black ink that printers used, but we discover that there were similar rituals and initiations among scribes for centuries before Gutenberg's inventions.

What has been passed down of the mysteries is more than how to make a printer's hat from newspaper. There is the legend that Gutenberg printed a book that contained the ancient secrets of alchemy from which the printing arts evolved. This is why Nicolas Flamel, in the encoded book he gave his son, forbade anyone but his children and scribes to read it.

Beside the heritage of Gutenberg, we also have the legend of the hidden treasure described in Aldus Manutius's "Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli." There are emerging from this, three schools of mystery: 1. the Gutenberg camp; 2. the Aldine camp; 3. those who believe either both or neither. Of course, among these, there is considerable rivalry between the Gutenbergs and the Aldines.

Other secrets of the printer's guild talk of formulae that are elixirs in the form of inks, precious metals, like silver made from lead type, and treasured volumes that have been hidden away so that libraries and museums cannot hoard them. There is much, also, regarding sign language because many deaf people work on both presses and typesetting machines. In addition to the traditional national sign lanugages, each Guild has its own secret signs.

So, we have an entire secret society made up of skilled craftsmen who consider themselves the guardians of the word and the secrets of alchemie and ancient texts, complete with rivalries between factions and secret languages.

The Contemporary Backstory

2009-01-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

The Druckers are and have been a family of printers for generations. The name Drucker is German for "printer." Peter's fater was killed in a printshop accident when he fell into a high-speed Web press. His mother, frightened that it was not an accident, forebade any contact between Peter and his grandfater save Christmas and birthday cards and the grandfather's one gift of a subscription to a boy's magazine.

In fact, Francis Drucker, the grandfather, wrote and printed the quarterly magazine himself and there was a small subscription base. It seemed a pretty basic magazine focused on solving puzzles and telling exciting stories. In fact, it was a training magazine that Francis used to impart bits of wisdom and lore that he would have passed directly to Peter if he had been allowed more contact. Francis operated his publication from a remote facility near El Centro, CA.

Peter's inborn love of books led him to study library science in school, but when, at age 21, he received a ticket to visit his grandfather, he fell in love with presses. He was, however, also in love with the new desktop publishing and computer technology. Nonetheless, Francis initiated Peter into the mysteries of the Printer's guild. These mysteries included legends of another Gutenberg book, a hidden treasure, and the people who took them seriously. Peter traveled as an expert in DTP, training and assisting conversions to computerized processes, but he continued to complete his studies in library science, now determined to gain access to rare books that might hold the key to the printers' mysteries.

Hence, Peter was well-acquainted with the legends of gutenberg's other book long before The Voice contacted him. In fact, that seems to be why The mysterious Voice wanted Peter to be the one who went on the quest and solved the problem.

Is there an Aldine conspiracy?

2009-01-24T21:09:00.001-08:00

Was there an Aldine conspiracy? I'm not really ready to commit one way or the other, but if there was, I imagine that it would play out like this.

Aldus Manutius moved to Venice at the end of the 15th century and set up a print shop focused on the Greek & Latin Classics. In themidst of this he brings out a volume that sounded remotely classical, but that was erotic, disjointed, and heavily illustrated - apparently partially encoded. The book ~1505 was "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli" (THP). It has long been assumed that the book was a book of clues to a hidden treasure.

What if the original map did not get to the vatican, but was switched yet again with a meaningless map that was hidden in the Vatican. Then years later, the courier, whoever that was, makes a side-trip to visit a printer of classics who would love to get his hands on the library of Alexandria.

He convinces Aldus that the map is authentic and enlists his support in preserving it. They succeed in following the map, but it leads nowhere due to Gutenberg's doctoring. Frustrated, Aldus decides to preserve the map for his heirs and does so by hiding bits of it in the pictures and text of THP. The Aldines have been trying to make sense of the original map ever since. They believe the key to the map is in the mysterious other book of Gutenberg.