Category: Artists

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Store Brand versus Name Brand…when Best Laid Plans Float Away

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Recently I tried to shave my grocery bill by buying store brand cereals and other items. With cereals, I didn’t notice any difference in the consistency or taste. The store brand ice cream had a flat taste, however, so I continued to pony up the money for name brand. Most store brands are no-frills. You get the same quality and ingredients, but you lose the pretty packaging and designs, especially with paper products. As for tissues…well, my nose didn’t notice any difference. I was able to get manila envelopes at the dollar store for a fifth of what I’d pay in a stationary store. For medications, I’ve stayed with the name brand Allegra because there’s something reassuring about the orange color of the pill. Otherwise, the generic medicines work just as well.

Sometimes, when the store’s offering a great sale and a coupon, I find it cheaper to stick with name brands. At the Giant last week, I bought a box of Eggo Waffles for seventy-five cents. Because I had a decent coupon, I got two Venus disposable razor packs for the price of one. Allegra’s always on sale, and with a generous coupon, too. Today, I found HP paper on clearance, and got two packs for $5.00 each. I recommend sticking with HP or other name brand computer paper and ink because the wrong paper / ink can damage or jam your printer.

Why do I go through all this trouble to save money? Because I have Walter Mitty dreams of getting my bedroom redone. Perhaps I want to save the money for jewelry or a trip. Maybe I saw a Coach purse with my name on it. So the question is, did I succeed in saving money at the supermarket? So far, no.

This past shopping expedition was a case of best laid plans floating away…literally. When I walked into the Giant, a glittery Mylar balloon with bows blocked my passage. I tried running the other way and bumped into a Mylar planter. Going sideways, I headed straight into a Mylar heart with butterflies – all Mother’s Day balloons and pricey ones at that.

“Why?” I gazed at the balloons helplessly. “I’m not a mother. I don’t have any children.”

“Of course, you do.” The balloons smiled at me. “You’ve got 68 balloons and you’ve been a great mother to them.”

So the glittery balloon with the bows went home with me. Cost: nine dollars. What’s more, I drove home with the AC on because I didn’t want the balloon to overheat. I remember shaking my head, thinking I was the first person on this planet to use air conditioning for a balloon’s comfort. But this one is a real beauty and well worth it.

Mylar balloons always find their way into Barbara Custer's zombie fiction.

I couldn’t resist tempting Barbara!

This got me to contemplating my character Alexis of Steel Rose and her buying habits. If Alexis could jump out of the pages, she’d brain me for spending nine dollars on a balloon. She and I make the same salary, but she takes a plethora of expensive medicines that insurance doesn’t cover well. She’s got to stick with store brand items so she can pay for her treatment, although in a weak moment, she might indulge in a CD. In the sequel, When Blood Reigns, things are getting ugly fast. Because of the zombie invasions, traditional mail and FedEx have ceased services to Philadelphia.

Because of this a zombie invasion may preclude balloon offerings at any supermarket. Fewer stores would remain open, if any, and soldiers would police the aisles for walking dead. In Alexis’ world, I’d buy whatever brands I could get and thank God I made it to the store alive. I’d hope I had plenty of food at home because shopping might mean a longer drive. The balloon with the bows might be available through the black market, so I’d better prepare to spend twenty dollars.

This is assuming I can get to the supermarket and back unharmed.

Zombies aren’t choosy where they feed, especially if they’re hungry. A bunch of them might gang up on my car while I’m heading to the store. My option? Shop at a local deli or learn to use a gun. I tried picturing myself shooting zombies so I could get to a supermarket. Yeah, it could happen. You always find a way when you want something badly. An image formed in my mind of me staring at the gun, and thinking, good grief, I’m the first person in creation who shot zombies so she could buy a balloon.

So, do you find buying store brands have saved you money? How would a zombie invasion affect your hobbies and shopping habits? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

How would this zombie affect Barbara Custer's purchase of Mylar balloons?

How would this monster affect Balloon Lady’s shopping habits?

 

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Does Intelligent Life Exist in other Worlds?

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I once asked a priest this question. As he put it, the universe is a vast place, and he would find it hard to believe that God would create the universe for just humans. So other questions came to mind: what are these people like? What color eyes? What color hair, if any? What about language, verbal and nonverbal? Do they possess telepathy, telekinesis, or any of the other powers with which our movies endow them? Are they gentle friendly beings or are they monsters that prey on weaker species?

I didn’t go into my other questions with this priest, but I searched Google and Yahoo to get others’ thoughts on aliens. I’m not referring to our neighboring planets where the environment isn’t hospitable to life as we know it. I’m considering the yet-to-be-discovered planets outside our solar system. If people live in these worlds and visit our own, their technology must surpass us by centuries to construct spaceships capable of traveling to Earth.

Some folks believe the aliens would treat us the way we do animals – capture, dissect, see what it’s all about, tag it, release it, and study it in its natural habitat. In some cases, we might steamroll over it, destroying the habitat and wiping out the species. At worst, they might eat us, enslave us, torture and attack us. In Steel Rose, Woehar and her evil renegades do just that – inject a chemical that turns their human prisoners into zombies. When she’s not torturing, she hunts humans for nourishment the way we might hunt a deer or pheasant.

However, I’d like to think that bad and good qualities exist in the extraterrestrials just as they do in humans. The bad ones like Woehar might regard us as subservient beings deemed for slavery or an entrée for the dinner table. The decent ones might work shoulder to shoulder with us at a job, use their knowledge to help find cures, and may try to understand what it means to be human. Yeron, a refugee alien, works at Jackson Hospital in a research laboratory, trying to develop cures for cancer and other killer diseases. He works closely with the human doctors in that laboratory and shields Alexis from the evil hospital administrator. Sometimes humans make the worst kind of monsters.

Even in best case scenarios, the aliens’ culture and beliefs will be radically different from ours. Their logical minds would preclude a belief in any god. Before his compound exploded, Yeron grew up doing experimental treatments on human prisoners and releasing them (into their natural habitat). In his mind, he was doing The Right Thing by treating their injuries and ailments. The people getting the treatments didn’t agree, and he had to hypnotize them into forgetting. Alexis and Yeron have a tough go at working together at first because of the cultural differences.

Talk about diversity training. Imagine working with a boss from Planet X or having lunch with a coworker from Planet Y. Most workplaces teach diversity, and alien coworkers would present new challenges for the instructor.

Someone on Yahoo asked what people would do if they saw extraterrestrials roaming the streets. I’d stay in the house and watch between the drapes before taking any action. How do the aliens treat humans? If any blood spilled, I’d lock my doors and windows and hide under my balloon tree. If however, the aliens and humans engaged in pleasant interaction, I might come outside and introduce myself. And if there was one alien, and people were shooting at him, I might invite him in my house and offer him shelter under my balloon tree. Above all, I hate seeing people bullied, human or alien.

Whether we anticipate it or not, we might have to prepare for a meeting with people from other worlds one day. The weather patterns have gotten more erratic with tornadoes, harsher blizzards during the winter, and droughts that result in fires, not to mention earthquakes such as the kind that leveled Haiti. It may not happen in my lifetime, but one day the severity of these patterns will make Earth incompatible with human life unless we build underground or dome-covered cities, or migrate to other planets. Will we find friendly neighbors and embrace diversity? Might their advanced technology afford cures for diseases like cancer? Or will we be fighting for the right to live?

In Barbara Custer's Steel Rose, her characters learn what it means to work with extraterrestrials.

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Don’t Take Candy off of Strangers

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Author Jerry Jenkins announced an “Innovative Publishing Firm.” According to Victoria Strauss, innovative in publishing press release speak means charges a whopping fee. But writers might be willing to trust Jerry and his company more readily, believing they’re dealing with good Christian folks. Well, let’s see about that.

Jenkins established Christian Guild Writers Publishing, a self-publishing company targeted toward Christian writers. CGWP offers a six-month writing course, basic stuff for beginning writers. The writers are paired with mentors, that is, published authors who walk them through the process. Only one of the seven members is a fiction writer. At the end, CGWP will edit, proof, design, cover, and produce a book. You’ll get copy-editing, proofing, and basic services like ISBN. Cost to the author: $9,995. There are several caveats. CGWP doesn’t provide distribution; you’re on your own. If your book runs longer than 75K words, there’s a surcharge. Content editing raises the price. Custom design for the interior and cover cost extra, too. CGWP offers the option of hardback, but for print runs of 1,000 copies. Methinks I smell a scam.

Now there’s nothing wrong with self-publishing. If that’s the way you choose to go, then you become a consumer evaluating a company that’s providing a service. You can publish your work on Smashwords and Kindle for free. Mind you, you’ll need an editor and someone to design your cover, but CreateSpace will provide such services for less than $2000 if you decide to use these services at all.

Speaking of distributing companies, let’s look at Autharium, a new British site. According to The Passive Voice, Autharium has made it easy for authors to upload, publish, and distribute their work. Out of curiosity I took a look at the site. At first glance, Autharium looks a lot like Lulu and CreateSpace. They’ve got a dashboard that enables you to upload files and directions on how to do it. You set your price the way you do with Lulu and CreateSpace, and they do a quality check before the book is approved for distribution. “At first glance” are the operative words. Things get ugly when you read Autharium’s terms and conditions. I posted some below.

 

  • “By submitting your Work to Autharium and accepting these Terms & Conditions, you grant to Autharium the exclusive right and license to produce, publish, promote, market and sell your Work in any Digital Form (as defined in paragraph 1.4 below) in all languages throughout the world for the entire legal term of copyright (and any and all extensions, renewals and revivals of the term of copyright).” That’s the author’s life plus 70 years under British copyright law.
  • “Please note that your removal of your Work from sale in accordance with paragraph 13.1 above will not terminate this Agreement nor cause the exclusive digital publishing rights that you have granted to Autharium pursuant to paragraph 1 above to revert to you. You maintain copyright of the Work at all times.”
  • “If you wish to sell your Work in any Digital Form through any other publisher, distributor or means then you will need to contact Autharium at support@autharium.com to agree transfer of the digital publishing rights to your Work.”

Let’s look at Starship Invasions, published by me and Tom Johnson through the Night to Dawn imprint. The contract runs three years, and then the rights revert to the author. I distributed the book through Lulu and CreateSpace, using different ISBN numbers. Suppose I decided to use Autharium, too? At the end of three years, Tom and I would have to get written permission from Autharium to continue publishing and submitting our stories. Let’s say a publisher comes by, offering a generous advance for our book. We’d still have to request permission and likely pony up a lot of money to get it.

Another scam, only this one acts as a distributor, enticing new authors who are anxious to see their books in print. My mother once told me never to take candy off of strangers. I think she had it right.

I’ve got to thank Mitzi Flyte for sending me the URL for Passive Voice. I’m also blessed to belong to a forum like The Writers Coffeehouse where I can find information like this. Jonathan Maberry originally recommended Preditors & Editors. If you’re testing an unfamiliar market, I recommend visiting as many watchdog sites as possible. If the candy the new publisher is offering really tempts you, these following watchdog agencies can advise you whether or not that company is legit.

 

  • The Passive Voice – the Passive Guy (David P. Vandagriff) is a contract lawyer. He does not offer legal advice on his blog, but he discusses the trends in publishing. He also points out potential minefields for the writer, such as bad formatting or scam distributors.
  • Writer Beware – Victoria Strauss will dig through the underworld of literary scams, schemes, and minefields. She’ll also welcome guest bloggers for Writer Beware. Most of the guest blogs are related to writing advice or perhaps a current problem in the industry.
  • Absolute Write Water Cooler will give you the full disclosure on most agents and publishing houses. In addition, they post basic writing advice, how to handle rejection, “ask the agent,” and other good topics.
  • Piers Anthony is a well-known author, having had a lot of his books published by Tor. If you click on his link “Publish on web,” you’ll get his evaluation of eBook publishers in alphabetical order. Pay attention to the red print – that’s his latest update on the given publisher.
  • Preditors & Editors, an oldie but goodie, will give you the low down on publishers, agents, bookstores, editors, software (yes, writing software), magazines, workshops, game publishers, and so forth.

When you go through the watchdog sites, consider the date of the evaluation. A complaint written in 2008 won’t tell you much because that was then, and this is 2013. New management may have taken care of the problem. Sometimes you’ll get conflicting stories. If you do, I recommend my Balloon Rule. If one person says you’re a balloon, ignore them. If two people tell you you’re a balloon, listen. If three people call you a balloon, get a ribbon and float.

I wanted to include the watchdog sites because I’m a firm believer in writers covering for each other. Are there any sites I haven’t mentioned? What has your publishing experiences been like? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

 

Barbara Custer never takes candy off of strangers.

This candy looks delicious, but I wouldn’t accept it from a stranger.

 

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Does Alexis of Steel Rose Like Balloons?

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Barbara Custer's Steel Rose features a character who likes balloons. That’s a good question. After all, I can’t go into a supermarket without buying one. The balloons take on a life of their own when I arrive. My balloons have a way of creeping into all my blogs and seminars about respiratory care and writing. The characters in Alien Worlds and City of Brotherly Death have had a thing for balloons. Why not the denizens of Steel Rose?

Indeed.

Let me put it this way. Alexis doesn’t mind having balloons. She stockpiles them the way I do because she believes that the helium in them will protect her from Kryszka renegades. Yeron counts thirty balloons during his initial examination, and this doesn’t go over well at all. The helium in them is deadly toward his species. The balloons threaten Yeron, and an imaginary conversation plays through his mind:

Balloons: That’s right, Yeron, you don’t belong here.

Yeron: I do not like you either, so the feeling is mutual.

When Yeron contemplates his next approach to Alexis, the balloons grin at him. Is that so? You don’t know as much as you think you do, buddy.

On that last, Yeron hurries to his suite where he keeps his helium-proof mask. Initially, Alexis fears Yeron the way she does all men, and the balloons make an effective barrier. How then can Yeron and Alexis get romantic with all those balloons in the way? Well, folks, you have to read the story and find out.

Outside of protection, Alexis does not have a fixation on balloons, but she appreciates the sentiments written on them. She knows someone who has a thing for balloons. One of the other doctors has a wife who fancies balloons, and Alexis thinks it’s cute. Later on, the balloons will play an important role. They have to, just like Chekhov’s gun. You can’t introduce a loaded rifle into your story without using it, and the same goes for Mylar balloons. Much as I love my balloonies, I would not have put them in Steel Rose without a good reason.

In the sequel, the balloons will go bye-bye. Alexis will be too busy kicking zombie ass.

Steel Rose has just gone live, and you can read some excerpts here.

 In Barbara Custer's Steel Rose, Yeron finds his way toward Alexis despite all the balloons in his way.

Book cover by Dawné Dominique; Promo by Cyrus Wraith Walker

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Desk Job: Sarah In Office-Land Review by Neil K. Henderson

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Set in the offices of a big Sydney business concern of the 1990s, Desk Job by former Masque Noir editor, Rod Marsden, reads like staring through a hothouse window at a weird menagerie of mismatched captive fauna.

Among the exotic and nightmarish metaphors for office “types” – such as praying mantises (women of “a certain age” out for blood at a sniff of male impropriety), dung beetles (sycophants to the mantises), hawks (upwardly mobile managers), caterpillars (semi-comatose top brass), mules (disregarded drudges), and butterflies (pretty young do-nothings) and their older, drabber moth counterparts – real human souls live-out daily drama in this infernal inversion of Alice’s Wonderland. Animal behavior is controlled by the government-imposed political correctness dictates of the period. No one dares infringe on the rights of a “protected species.” On the other hand, it’s open season on the native wildlife. Tensions mount. Fear, paranoia, and madness ensue until one employee is murdered by another while most are too busy watching their own backs to notice. It’s the kind of mess you’d need a psychic investigator to work out.

Enter Sarah Hollingsworth, who’s seen it all already in a dream. She can read people’s minds to present the reader with psychological profiles and biographical insights into the group of characters under the microscope. (She even interviews the victim!) This lets her give the kind of nonjudgmental overview that keeps things nicely in balance and stops the reader (and some of the characters) from totally losing the plot. She also provides a few surprises along the way with her own interaction among the forces of the mystical realm.

It’s a testament to Rod Marsden’s easy style that the whole unfolding kaleidoscope of animal imagery, social comment and dark fantasy reads with a page-turning immediacy gripped until a satisfactory conclusion is reached. (Not so much a Whodunnit, this, as a Whydunnit.)

But, the conclusion is not the end of the book. What Marsden does with the remaining third is to literalize the previously metaphorical types as living dream creatures, in a totally fantastical code section reflecting back the Lewis Carroll motifs from a new perspective. Sarah here ventures through an interdimensional portal, like Alice’s looking glass, to interact with real mantises and beetles and a Queen of Hearts who wants to psych out the office workers via computer consoles and hand-mirror getaways. A fast and furious fantasy adventure follows – ensuring the novel achieves a flying finish.

Sandwiched in between the episodic close-ups on specific cases in part one, collected quotes from contemporary Australian books on office psychology provide a Greek chorus to the developing drama. These interludes continue as a unifying factor through the second part. Here, the lika-lika bird (every sentence starts with “like a…”) rears her gorgeously plumaged head. She’s still young and uncorrupted, prior to landing that fatal office job. Her outside view is refreshingly alternative. There is also the graffiti-spraying mall rat, destined to become a mule, or even a hawk someday.

It is difficult to encapsulate in a brief review the complex interplay of fantastical dream situations, figuratively-represented actuality and actualized fantasy contained in Desk Job. Odd magical moments come to mind, such as the vision of several “brown-nose” dung beetles lining up to boil themselves in a cauldron because of the praying mantis they worship like soup. There’s also the annoying whistling delivery man who appears at the office every so often, and is perfunctorily assaulted by a member of staff. Then, there are the cats which periodically pop through mirrors or get their tails pulled by startled mortals. Particularly amusing is the scene near the end of lika-lika birds all crowding around one such hand-mirror, convinced that the cat which just appeared was cleverly programmed in by the manufacturers. I can just see them haunting all the shops in Sydney asking for the mirrors with the pop-out cats!

Does that make sense? Not maybe on the face of things, but, in the context of this curiously individual and delightfully engaging novel, it makes perfect sense. If you don’t believe me, I recommend you take a psychic trip through the portal of its covers and experience it for yourself. Desk Job is a book with “Read Me” written all over it.

Desk Job is Rod Marsden's satire on political correction.

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Rejected Again? Take Heart!

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Take heart - Barbara Custer of Night to Dawn wants to read your zombie fiction.

Lately I’ve read a lot of posts on the angst people feel when they submit work and get the infamous rejection letter. With my NTD magazine, I’ve been on both sides of the desk, so when I reject work, I try to be careful with how I word my reply. I might make suggestions on improving the story. If I really like the story, but not enough to use it for NTD, I’ll encourage the writer to send more work. Let’s say you’ve read and reread your story to your critique group, gone through the piece for typos with a fine tooth-comb, and you can’t break into a publication. Howcumzit?

Look at your cover letter. You’d be surprised how many submissions I get start with “dear editor.” When someone doesn’t take the time to learn my name, I have to wonder if they researched the magazine at all. I’ve heard this complaint from other publishers, too.  Most editors frown on nicknames, too, but if someone called me “balloon lady,” at least I’d know the person sending was doing their homework. Lose the “you’ll love my story” approach, too. For short stories, keep it simple. A brief bio is great. Also anything that qualifies you to write the story. For example, I let people know I’m a respiratory therapist because my medical background gives technical detail to my stories.

Let’s say your cover letter is clean, and it’s time to read the submission. Well, for me, browsing through submissions like a trip down the party aisle at the supermarket. If a story or poem calls to me the same way a balloon does at the supermarket, that piece will go to print. So how do I select balloons? Glitter, unique shape, original design, and well inflated. How does this compare to submissions?

  • Glitter: The story should glitter with conflict and action from page one. Better yet, the first paragraph in a short story. Your protagonist should protag and not be a spectator. If you’ve cluttered the first two or three pages with backstory, you’ve lost the reader.
  • Unique shape: Butterfly balloons in particular catch my eye. With stories, I’m looking for unique takes on the vampire, zombie, and other conventional monsters.
  • Original design: I’m looking for a story told in a fresh slant. Recently I’ve rejected work because I’d already published similar stories.
  • Well inflated. I won’t buy a balloon that has soft spots because it may be leaking helium. So what qualifies as a “well inflated” story? The conflict and action keep me reading from start to finish. I’ve gotten some stories that started beautifully but fell flat at the end. Sometimes the ending stops me but I can’t say why.

Let’s say you jumped through those hoops and you still get a rejection. If an editor rejects your work with a personal critique, it means they cared enough about the story to make suggestions. Another editor may have a different, more positive perception. If the editor invites you to send more work, they mean it. So keep submitting!

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