Read aloud, the unnecessary stands out

I am reading my book to my daughters. They seem to enjoy it, particularly the parts where I poke fun at seemingly invulnerable adult characters. Seeing a gruff adult turn all sappy, or a scary villain trip all over himself is funny to them. They like hearing the story and beg for more. I enjoy reading it to them.

As part of the writing process, reading it aloud to them really helps out. The grammatical errors become glaringly obvious as my mouth trips over trying to say the sentences out loud. Even more glaring, though, are the writing indulgences which prove completely unnecessary to the book. In order to keep myself going, I force a free form "write whatever hits your head" approach. If I get an idea, I write it down on paper the way the words form in my head. If I think something is funny, amusing or interesting I just go for it right away before I lose it. Sometimes I will even skip several chapters ahead just to get something written out as it hits my skull, although usually I capture the idea in notes (as an aside, my inner geek shows through, as I use SGML style markup to do it... like this).

The problem with this approach is that many ideas are distractions which might have seemed fun to me, but that really don't play a part in the movement of the storyline. For the kind of story I am writing, sticking to the action is critical to keep the audience's interest. I have read whole chapters that on reflection should be removed entirely with just the bare stitching need to fix the hole they leave behind. Some chapters I want to keep, but maybe move to later in the story, as they deal with character development that become important points of the plot.

I'm not saying anything new or novel here. I have read several times in articles by other writers that reading the story out loud really helps in the proof reading. It is just interesting to reflect on it now as I am doing it.

Hey, advertising is free!

Really, all you need is the time to make a video. Then just post it on YouTube. Here are two of my own that I did for the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOjah2HWsGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMSEaBvLuM

Obviously this isn't all. The desire is for the video to go viral. I have to admit to my own ineptitude at manipulating the interests and desires of the general populace. I really have no idea how to get something like this to go all over the place. I tend to lean a great deal on hoping the content itself will carry it, but as I have seen with other attempts at promoting my book, that really is not enough.

Other people seem interested in this phenomenon as well. Advertising companies are doing a great deal to get their ads on YouTube and the web in general. One of my friends, Dave Kindard, seems to be invest a deal of research into the viral tipping point, particular with his recent use of Twitter as a distribution medium. Maybe I need to start reading up.

I recently read an article by another author about Amazon detail page visits. He never published the article, but he sent me a copy because the idea for the technical hack making it possible came from me. I had suggested to him a means by which an author published on Amazon could track how many times their book's detail page had been hit, something Amazon doesn't tell you (the technique no longer works - Amazon's behaviors changed around May this year). He ran an experiment and found not only could he count his hits, he could tell how the person visiting the page had got there (Amazon keeps such information on the URL query string), which allowed him to catalog the effectiveness of different means of promoting books. The conclusion: personal websites, Amazon guides, Listmania lists and author blogs are ineffective. The most effective means are Amazon's "bought together" feature and placement in search results.

Its all part of the "what drives people to something" soup that is the Internet. I personally found that paid web-based advertising was completely useless for promoting my book. I set the account on a small budget (this is a hobby to me, not a business) - and got lots of clicks (I chose pay for click as the model). Not ONE of those clicks registered as a visit to my website. Again, to reiterate - not ONE SINGLE CLICK that I PAID FOR resulted in a web site hit. I believe I was likely a victim of clickbot fraud. This is when automated programs simulate clicks on advertisements to exhaust the advertisers budget, after which point that ad no longer runs. This leaves the ads the clickbot deployer paid for a greater amount of the remaining ad displays. The problem is so big that MS actually sued the daylights off a business in Canada doing precisely that.

You know what DID drive people to my website? Chest pain. Well, searches on chest pain. When I first created my website, I wrote an experimental blog post about having a heart attack. The article talked about how after a heart attack all the day to day little muscular pangs you get in the chest area scare the daylights out of you. I forgot about the article for about six months until after I had published my book and put a page about it on my website and ran some ads on Facebook and Google. I was looking at the site visit reports, and surprisingly I had traffic, but many months before I ever published the book. I followed through the referrer URL, and they came mostly from Google searches. Google? Why would people be searching my site on Google? I checked the tag terms, and they were for "pain in chest". Apparently calling Google comes before calling 911. Go figure.

But the point that is interesting is that in both cases, effective placement in search results seems to be an important aspect of website promotion.

Yet, I am not sure if that is works for viral media. I always get that delivered to me by someone in email, or on sharing sites like Facebook and Digg. I am wondering about the dynamics of social movement described by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. There, Gladwell describes the necessity of three personality types to start a social phenomenon - the early adopters (the ones on the fringe who differ from the mainstream), the observers (these are people who understand the early adopters and see a fad coming) and the connectors (these are people who have a massive network of other people they either know and communicate with, or who hang on them for advice). I am wondering if viral media rely on the same sort of thing.

Correlations of stupidity explained with stunning charts

Why the other side is always stupid

It is just the law of numbers at work. In a standard distribution, average intelligence is at the top center of the hump. However, we really don’t count you as smart until you are substantially farther up the curve than average. Stupid, however, well, if you live anywhere below the top of the hump, then you get to own that dumbass badge.

This is why the “other side” of any argument always looks like it is highly correlated with idiots. That is because everything, no matter what side, is highly correlated with idiots. No matter your viewpoint, the standard distributions will apply, and by definition, at least half of those people will be below average intelligence, hence stupid.

Reading for early critics

I picked an easy audience: my kids. I've squeezed in two nights of reading so far. A total of four chapters. They seem to like it. I told them that the book was just all over the place and needed some serious editing before it was ready to be read aloud, but they didn't care.

I find myself correcting grammar, skipped and incorrect words as I read. Still, it doesn't roll off the tongue too badly, which seems to be a pretty good test of how it is going. At 8.5 x 11, double spaced 10 pt. font the book is about 150 pages long. It's about 340 pages long when reformatted for a typical kids paperback size. I want to get the book down to about 200 pages long, which might mean some re-ordering of the chapters and points of action, as well as some serious trimming.

At the moment, the second book ends right smack in the middle of the action where the third book starts. I have not been able to bring myself to begin the third book just yet. I am letting some of the ideas sort themselves out in my mind.

I just hit page 301... I celebrate with a table of contents, and title spoiler...

Okay, I just crossed the 300 page mark. I have hit the moment before the final, last scene of the book. So, to celebrate, I have decided to drop a few spoilers. Three, in fact:

1. The book ends with a cliffhanger
The second book does not wrap up and resolve itself. It dives right into the action of the third book. I dare not describe the action in the ending - because I really do believe it will be totally unexpected. I believe it works with the story, and make sense when viewed with the rest of it, but nothing leading up to this ending will give you any clue to how it is going to end.

2. Okay... here comes the title for book #2
Are you ready? I mean, are you actually ready? This is a legitimate spoiler. I have been wrestling with this one for a while, and it has taken a long time for this title to emotionally soak in, but I finally feel committed to it. So... the title of the book is: "Millicent Marbleroller and the Bear Monster Army"

3. And here is the table of contents... at least, so far...
The problem is that this book is too long as it is. It is all the way to page 300 by the time the last chapter starts, and that is just to leave it at a halfway point cliffhanger for the third book. I am anticipating doing tons of edits on this book to cut it back fifty to seventy pages or so. I might move some of the action and dialogue out of this book and to the third... but until I do, the chapter names and page numbers are as follows:

Prologue 3
Alone With the Music 5
More Music and Many More Bells 15
The Package 26
The Delivery 36
Jolly Good Toys 53
Work Begins 70
Bears in the Night 79
Investigations and Messages 87
Trouble Brewing 99
Interview with the Admiral 117
Back at Work 124
Into The Walls 132
Nobbins Story 153
The Orchestra In The Cellar 171
The Room In The Ceiling With No Doors 179
Back in the Kitchen 209
Civic Courtroom 15B 221
The Admiral’s Case 227
The Decision 237
Shadows In The Moonlight 246
The Other Way In 252
The Admiral’s Victory Gloat 262
The Clock Ticks 274
The Whistle That Saved The Day 282
The Roar of Engines 290
Standoff With the Admiral 299

2009 Memorial Day Weekend Activities for Roseberry Family

Saturday
Eggs, vinegar, plaster and rocks. Two science projects.
Plaster and rocks was all about making a craterscape. This was for Hanna's astronomy class. We poured some plaster into a container, and just before it was setup, we dropped rocks and sand into it. I think we let the plaster set up just a little bit too much, but we still got some rocks.
Aimee's science experiment inspired more of a visceral reaction. The experiment was to see if soaking eggs in different kinds of vinegar would have a different effect on the breaking point of those eggs when dropped from various heights. The eggs had been soaking for many days (were supposed to go at three days, but that was last weekend and I was too tired for science). The three types of vinegar were red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and white vinegar. Aimee held the yardstick, Tanya took notes, and I did the dropping. The shortest dropping height was four inches (white vinegar) and the highest was 12 inchest (red wine vinegar). The site of the experiment smelled of eggs and vinegar - go figure.
Before all of this we went to Bainbridge Island. Really this was nothing more than the ferry trip, a little lunch, and then back. It was more about being on a boat on a sunny day than it was about doing something. In retrospect, though, we really need to learn more about Bainbridge Island so that next time we have a better itinerary.
Really need to do the San Juan Islands...

Sunday

I forcibly wake up the family and get them in the car by 9:00 am. This is an astounding feat in our house, made even more amazing by the fact that there was no screaming, yelling or bloodshed involved.

We then headed north on I-5 until we got to the Bow-Edison, Chuckanut Drive exit. I took them west until we got to Larrabee State Park. Low tide was at 11:15, with a -3.2. We spent about and hour and a half looking at the tide pools.



Monday
On Monday morning, we don't do very much at all. The kids sleep in. I wake up around 7:30, but don't do very much until Tanya wakes up. The two of us eat oatmeal until we decide to rouse the girls around 9:30.

Hanna and Aimee have planned to see Night at the Museum 2 with a friend from Hanna's school. Tanya is going with them. I cause a bit of disruption right before the trip by resetting the passwords on all the user accounts for the kids... that got me in big trouble with the kid who was in trouble in the first place, which is why I reset the password to begin with.

I give the angry child a few minutes to chill out, explain calmly to her the rationale behind the disciplinary action and convince her to cheer up before going to the move.

While the girls are at the movie, I take Ethan out on a bicycle ride. This is only his second time on the bike. I take him to the biking trail that runs along bear creek behind Redmond Town Center (really, starts behind World Imports). I think we probably went a half mile, total. I checked my watch at the end. We were on the trail for at least an hour and a half. I had to follow him with the same speed you follow old people when you are helping them down the hallway with their walker. He kept doing that thing where he pedals so slowly that the pedal won't move once it comes just short of top dead center - that point where you have to transition from a rising foot movement to forward, but sometimes you do a push down movement that immobilizes the bike. Add to this that he hates being nudged or pushed... even when it means getting him out of the middle of the trail so the other light speed bikers have room to ride around him.

Back at home, I am helping Aimee with charts for her report on the egg dropping.

Facebook detox-ing

I am in the middle of a Facebook detox experiment. About two weeks ago I stopped checking my facebook page. I stopped posting status. I stopped taking silly little quizzes.

I was addicted to it. I was neurotically checking the page several times a day to see if there were any updates, messages, comments or whatever. Even worse, two weeks after my cold turkey cleansing, I still want to check. I come to the computer and feel a compulsion to type in the URL... and when I don't, the experience feels so empty. Its like there is nothing to do on the computer. It felt as if I can't have my Facebook fix, then what the blazes is technology for in the first place?

Isn't that the stupid thing ever? I mean, here is a machine capable of so many things, and yet some wacked out obsessive addictive behavior of mine has reduced it to lobbing back and forth blibbets of information 1000 characters at a time.

I don't know if this is a stable experiment. Facebook has become a kind of communication central - supplanting emails and phone calls. People rely on its noteboard-like experience to casually drop off bits of information for their circle of friends, family and acquaintance. It it is a proxy for email - obscuring one's actual email address (kind of a nice feature, really)... but that basically necessitates visiting the site to reply (unless, of course, we all go back to email again).

I have filled more of my time with gardening, painting and writing. I managed to get out two full chapters on my sequel to Millicent Marbleroller tonight. I also started another book two days ago - this one a how-to, as supposedly those are easier to sell. Maybe that's the answer to the outcome of going dry on Facebook? Happy, fulfilling, Luddite pasttimes?