Stormsdream Journal & News

Journal: 25 December, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:52:00 PST

This is going to be another one of those rants that nobody will care about except for me, which doesn't really matter since I am the only person I know of who actually reads these things. Or, writes them. Or, reads and writes them. Or, whatever.

Anyway, there is this podcast I like where they talk about geeky type stuff. Lots of Science Fiction and Fantasy type stuff. Movies. Comic books. Games. I haven't played the kinds of games they talk about in so long I cannot remember when. On and on. It's very entertaining.

So, I was rooting around in their podcast archive to see if I could find anything really interesting, and I stumbled across their podcast on Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith. It was hilarious. But, there was one thing said that almost had me yelling back at them. One of the group roaring away about how much he didn't like the movie said that George Lucas owed him. Now, it is true that one of the other people did say back that Lucas didn't owe him, but I don't think that part of the argument was ever settled.

The problem is that the belief that the creative type person somehow owes the consumer is just one of those really strange and incredibly selfish things that are out there. It's right up there with religion, politics and stealing software. No matter how hard you might try you will never alter that selfish, self-centered and down-right hostile belief that the consumer is owed.

The fact that the belief is wrong is totally irrelevant, and my spouting off about it here is really rather kind of pointless since I will never change a single person's damn mind.

As near as I can figure, the whole concept behind the creative type person owing the consumer is based around the idea that the consumer has previously given the creative type person lots of money for something the consumer liked. Somehow, by purchasing good things the creative type person has done, a debt has been created. It is almost as if the consumer now believes that he has loaned the creative type person money to be used toward future work.

Actually, that might not be quite right. Say, it is more like the consumer believes he has loaned the creative type person good will. Or, say, the consumer has created the expectation that the creative type person will make more things the consumer likes or suffer the wrath.

No, wait, I've got it. The consumer believes that he has made the creative type person because the consumer has given the creative type person lots and lots of money. And, since the consumer has made the creative type person rich and successful, the creative type person now owes a debt of gratitude to the consumer and owes the consumer more stuff just like the last stuff.

At least, this is as close as an understanding I can reach from the statements "He owes me!" and "I've given him so much money!"

And, now that I've built up my straw man, I will now proceed to burn it down.

My response to the statement "He owes me!" is very simply and really quite similar to what one of the other people said in the podcast.

Nobody owes you a fucking thing, you stupid selfish bastard! You're a product of the self-centered, instant gratification generation, aren't you? You probably steal software, movies and music off the internet and would Byrne steal comic books if you even knew what that meant!

See, if you call it pirating music, it sounds kind of cool. But, it is stealing. Make no mistake. And, I don't care if you're stealing from rich people. Doesn't make it okay. It's still stealing. As I jokingly said to a friend who had just been bragging about stealing movies, you want Samantha to be poor because you would rather steal one of my books than pay for it?

But, I digress.

Okay, here is the thing. When a consumer purchases a ticket or buys a book or whatever, the consumer is buying a ticket for a ride. The consumer takes the ride. If the consumer likes the ride, he may buy another ticket. If the ride is really good, the consumer may buy another ticket and another and another for that ride.

See? You're paying the creative type person for something he has already done and not for something in the future.

You're not making the creative type person. You're not building up a gratitude debt that the creative type person now owes you. You are telling the creative type person in no uncertain terms how much you enjoyed the ride that the creative type person already made for you. Not something the creative type hasn't done yet. What has already been done.

D'uh.

Oh, yeah? What about the fact that the next ride is a piece of shit? Huh? What have you got to say to that?

I say, be disappointed. I say, go ahead and be mad that you are disappointed in the new ride. But, remember that you are the one who had high hopes for the new ride. This isn't the creative type person's fault. You are the one who built up a gratitude debt in your own little head.

And, don't tell me that the creative type person took advantage of the fact you had expectations of future greatness in your own little head. You are still the one who had those expectations. Not the creative type who may or may not have taken advantage of them. You. You and your unexamined and unmoderated expectations for the future, stupid.

So, what to do when the next ride is a piece of shit? Only buy one ticket. Only go on one ride. Or, don't go on even one ride if enough people you trust tell you the ride is a piece of shit. And, think twice before buying a ticket for the next, next ride.

Example, Terry Pratchett's Discworld books tend to be pretty hit-or-miss, but I've still bought and read every single one because the average is still pretty good. Unfortunately, the last two I've read, Thud and Making Money, have both been such utter piles of putrid, stinking monkey shit that I'm really rather nervous about the next one.

I probably will buy and read the next one, but it may be the last if it also turns out to be shit.

This is also more or less the conclusion of the podcast about Star Wars, but I'm not sure if they resolved the "he owes me!" issue.

There will always be selfish bastards no matter how often you point this fact out to them. And, the unexamined life remains. Well, unexamined.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 23 November, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:10:00 PST

This is more of a note than a journal entry, but the main way I can tell that the economy has gone down the Crapper is because I've been getting a lot more calls from collection agencies recently. It's the problem with having a common last name like Jones and actually, something I've been putting up with for years. Not the collection agencies part. Just the random phone calls from people looking for some Keith Jones or other. My personal favorite was the call from the California National Guard wondering why I hadn't shown up for the first day of basic training. Yeah, that was fun, happened years ago, and only took a minute or two to straighten out.

These days, I'm glad I've got caller ID. I mean, I've never been big on answering the phone. Only doing so when and if I felt like it. But, I don't answer the phone anymore if I don't recognize the number.

Good news there is that I've never had to explain to any of these collection agencies why they've got the wrong person. Never had to explain that my middle name isn't Daryl or Darren or Darnell or whoever it is they are looking for.

I pay cash, use one of two credit cards, and pay attention to my credit report so I know they can't be looking for me. I just don't want to have to explain that to them.

Every so often, there is a story in the newspaper about how dogged and vicious these agencies can be once they've made contact, which also explains why they keep calling and leaving messages. I've been tempted to change the out-going message to point out that my middle name isn't Daryl or Darnell, but I'm worried the agencies will take this as a sign they've made contact and redouble their efforts. So, I don't. It's really to the point where I don't even bother to look at the caller ID anymore.

I check the phone when I feel like it; after all, it could be my parents.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 2 November, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 14:30:00 PST

So, I figured as long as I was on a roll that I might as well try another one of these here journal entries. Only problem with bunching them all together, of course, is the long dry spell that is sure to follow. Then, there is the fact that this is probably old news that nobody in the universe other than me cares about, but there you are.

I don't like those commercials that one computer company does. Just for fun, I'm not going to use their real names. Let's call them the Almond Computers commercials. Now, let us ignore all of the obvious stuff. Like the fact that Almond Computers is a hardware company trying to compare itself to the PB&J software company. Or, the fact that computers running Almond's software and computers running PB&J's software are, at this point in time, both HAL-clones. Blah, blah blah.

My problem isn't even the fact that the guy representing a computer running Almond software is supposed to look all hip and happening while the guy representing a computer running PB&J software is, let's face it, a socially awkward nerd. I do like the fact that I have recently seen this point about the commercials debated, but I don't have a problem with it because this reading misses the deeper issue.

My problem with the commercials is the fact that the guy representing Almond software bears more than a passing resemblance to the CEO of Almond Computers while the guy representing PB&J software bears a resemblance to the co-founder of PB&J and the fact that the PB&J guy is constantly belittled and ridiculed by the commercials. So, rather than being an examination of the weights and merits of Almond vs. PB&J software, the commercials are personal attacks on the co-founder of PB&J.

It's sickening.

You can't stop them from doing it. Even–sure–Almond Computers should be able to make commercials in which they make fun of PB&J software; however, when you do so by dressing somebody up to look like the co-founder of the company and proceed to make fun of him, it just isn't funny anymore.

And, when you are trying to represent what is cool and hip, should you really be presenting the image that it is okay to make fun of people you don't like? People who look, act and dress differently than you do?

Of course, you can, but it doesn't make it any less disgusting.

Oh, and before anybody says this is an incredibly hypocritical statement on my part considering what I wrote just last week, I will just say that I'm pretty sure that I made fun of the artwork and what I thought was the philosophy behind it. I said I don't like pretentiousness even in the artists. What I don't recall saying is that we should make fun of the artist because I don't like pretentiousness or even that I actually made fun of the person. But, then, I haven't reread last week's entry so something may have slipped through without me realizing it as I write this.

But, back to my point, I have no great preference for Almond software over PB&J software. I use the PB&J OS at home and the Almond OS at work. They're both good. They both have good days and bad days. No, really. So, every once in a great while I think about what kind of computer to have at home and what would be involved in getting one or the other.

Then, I remember those awful Almond Computer commercials and the underlying mentality of the people who must have thought that these commercials were a good idea and who continue to approve more of them, and the decision is easy.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 26 October, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:11:00 PDT

I know I've said this before, and I just know that I'll say it again. But, I really, really hate pretentious art, which is a form of pretentiousness all its own if you stop to think about it. But, that is not important right now. I hate pretentious art, and I really, really hate pretentious artists. They are so fussy and full of themselves, and if you really want to see me go off, just talk to me about art. Go on about the value of art. What it means. The underlying themes. The depth and grandeur. The meaning and message. It's still fucking art. I don't care how many eagles it saved or wales weren't slaughtered. I really don't care if it is a secret message that will slowly sink into your soul about how much the environment weeps for your grave. It's still just fucking art. It's a song. It's a painting. It's a matchbook cover or a cross dipped in pee. It's still just fucking art. It doesn't have to be about how much better life would be if we all just ate tofu.

Art is art. It just is. Very Zen if you want to get all profound about it. But, I also hate profundity if you can bother to remember. Profundity is about being so impressed by what is said that you don't actually have to bother to pay attention or think about what was actually said. But, let us not digress overly much here.

Latest example of what I see as pretentious art arrived in the morning newspaper. Yes, see? This is what has gotten me all frothing and raving.

They've been putting together this really cool piece of art at the local museum. It looks pretty cool from the pictures. Kind of like a wave out in the deep ocean. Or, maybe, a representation of a sound wave over time. Find in it what you will. Don't listen to me. The main thing being that I like it. It is quite cool. Well, worth admiring for its fascinating beauty. In my opinion, anyway. Nobody is required to share. If you think it looks like something that fell out of an elephant's arsehole, well, who am I to say you're wrong?

Not my point, anyway. Next to all the pretty pictures in the paper this morning was an unfortunate article about this particular piece of arsehole waste. Something about environmental art. Something about the intersection of art and industry. Or, something. I don't even know anymore. I got about as far as the representation of nature in industry or whatever, and I just had to throw the paper down. Rant at Samantha over breakfast for a minute.

Which reminds me of this other piece at the same museum. Now, this one is just a giant eyesore in my opinion. Other opinions may vary and I've got no problem with that. My real problem with the retched headache inducing thing aside from the fact that it is a rather impressive waste of space and looks like one of those 3D nightmares you used to see printed in the comics section of the newspaper is the pretentiousness of it, of course.

Read the little description next to the freaking thing. It goes on about the meeting of art and science and industry or something incredibly wretched like that. Oh, wait, if memory services, it is representative of something taken off a slide. Something about how this is actually a really small object and how it has been pasted across slabs of metal and stuck on a well at really increased magnification. And, you know what it actually looks like?

It looks like your computer's wallpaper. It looks like one of those background images you can have on your computer's screen. You know what I'm talking about, right? Back before everybody had their favorite picture or other to rest on their computer screen's desktop behind all of the open applications, there were these simple tiles or patterns. A little square of a design that was repeated over and over again until it filled the background. It was just something to hang back there so you weren't staring into the empty depths of the abyss if you didn't happen to have a program open at that moment.

Seriously, that is what it looks like. The background of your old computer's monitor write large, and an ugly background at that. I swear, I even recognize the tile. It used to come with all of those old Macintosh computers before they went all Technicolor on us. Seriously.

And, what do they call it? Some long rambling non-sense or other about the intersection of bull and shit.

I mean, really, why is it necessary to go on like this and sound like you've got your nose so far up your own ass that you think you can smell gold?

You like it or you don't. It moves you or it doesn't. It's an eyesore or it stuns you with its graceless majesty.

It's not about the intersection of industry, art and science. It just is. If you have to explain it, you've failed. If you have to justify it, you've failed. If you have to go on about the profundity before anybody realizes that it is profound, then you, my friend, have failed.

Actually, I will bet you a lead nickel why that headache inducing computer tile writ large has such a preposterously barf inducing description attached to it. The text is lifted from the grant application. No, seriously, you want to bet? They had to get the funds to slather ink all over laminated sheets of iron from somewhere. Those things are fucking expensive, I'm sure. So, you have to vomit forth the snake-oil prose in order to make the money men feel good about parting them from their--well--from their money.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 25 October, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:17:00 PDT

Well, adventures with Amazon.com continue. I really should get around to making an order form so people could get books directly from me. Not that people really want to. I'm sure taking that first look at the order form and discovering that you need to make that check out to me doesn't help. Can't pay by credit card. No paypal or anything like that. Guy can't even afford a business bank account, which is why you can't make the check out to Stormsdream. Nope, has to be to the author, personally. Sounds fishy. Must be a scam. Guy'll cash the check and claim he sent the books or something. Or, guy just can't get his act together enough, make enough to afford a business account. Last time I checked, the minimum for opening a business bank account was five grand. No idea what it is today. Probably still five grand. Hopefully, still only five grant. But, I digress. When I do get around to making an order form, it will have some pretty nice discounts on the books. I'm not sure about shipping and handling. That'll be somewhere between six and ten dollars. Haven't decided.

Anyway, the post office said they delivered that first pair of books to Amazon. Yes, I splurged for delivery confirmation. But, time passed and Amazon didn't update their website. It was as if they hadn't received the books. Naturally, I had been anxious about the whole thing so I went ahead and contacted them, wondering what to do. I mean, I did try to be polite about it all. For all I knew, I was way jumping the gun, and Amazon would just have to roll its collective eyes at yet another yokel.

What I wasn't expecting was this long, vaguely scolding diatribe about the United States Post Office. The reply from Amazon went on and on about how much the package weighed. Or didn't weigh. Or really just the fact that the post office's delivery confirmation didn't say how much the package weighed upon delivery. Because the confirmation did not include delivery weight, Amazon did not consider the United States Post Office's delivery confirmation to be valid, and therefor, Amazon wouldn't pay for any lost books.

Huh?

I hadn't said a word about wanting to be paid for lost books. I actually had kind of figured that I would just have to eat the cost of any lost books and replacement shipments. And, besides, what did any of this have to do with my original question. Which had been a little vague, I know, but I really had just been expecting them to say something along the lines of hey, relax, guy, it can take awhile to process books.

Wasn't expecting a diatribe. Nope. Wasn't. Made me suspicious, in fact. I know, unfounded. But, hardly the point. It's just the way Amazon went on about weight at delivery. Suspicious. Because I may not know first hand how they do things at Amazon but where I work, FedEx never weighs the package right before the guy hands it to you. Never happens. And, I deal with FedEx quite a bit at work. Package has just been sitting on a cart when the guy hands it to you. No scale.

So, when does the final weigh-in happen? Is the guy judging the weight that last time as he hands you the package? Doubt it. He's just trying to hand it to you. So, maybe it was weighed in the truck? Possible. I haven't asked. So, let us go with that just to be nice. But, here is the thing. The whole point of the weight at delivery thing is to prove that everything you shipped actually arrived. Problem here is that it doesn't look like the last weigh-in happened when the package was delivered. It happened at some earlier point even if we go with the truck.

Again, I don't know about Amazon but around where I work a lot can happen between the truck and the actual delivery. This really kind of means that weight at delivery doesn't necessarily mean as much as Amazon wants it to mean. I mean, really, unless an Amazon rep and the FedEx guy are both standing there in front of the scale, and together, they agree on the weight of the package, then you don't really know if it is accurate.

Not that this is really a big deal. Except for the fact that Amazon went on and on about it.

I should be nice. I mean, I do understand. It sounds like Amazon has to deal with a lot of people demanding payment for shipments that didn't arrive or maybe had less in them than the shipper claimed was in them. Don't know if it is true. But, it's possible.

All the same, not what I was expecting for a reply and doesn't really matter at this point. In fact, I've been working on this journal entry for three weeks. Or, to be more precise, wrote part of it one Saturday. Wrote, part of it last Saturday. And, here we are today. I never write journal entries like this. I'm much happier with an entry that is banged out all in one go. Complete thought. Done.

In fact, the only reason I haven't simply trashed this entry is because I really do want to keep updating every so often. I see months pass without an update on my website and I get nervous.

So, they did finally finds the wayward books. Or, maybe they did. It can be hard to tell because I also sent them copies to be scanned. You know. For that whole, search inside thing. I've discovered that after they are done scanning the book they place it into inventory. Or, eventually, it gets into inventory. So, I don't actually know if they found the missing package or if they placed the books for scanning into inventory filling the void as it were.

Anyway, books filled the void and were immediately purchased. The fact that I happen to know who purchased the books has nothing to do with it. They were purchased. I have a very sweet boss these days, by the way. So just as soon as they filled the void, they left a great gapping whole in the void.

Nothing happened for about a week, and I finally broke down and asked Amazon if they wanted any more copies. You know, after all, I did pay for my Amazon Advantage account and all of that. So, they said, yes, we want five more of each, which was really cool. Got me all excited and I threw a package together. I had even gone through all of the trouble of setting up a FedEx account so that there would be proper tracking and everything.

Still costs a freaking log more than the good-old post office. Even with all of these discounts I'm supposed to have because I used the FedEx website to generate the shipment. I'm supposed to have another discount because it is the first three months of my FedEx account, and I'm supposed to have a third discount because of Amazon Advantage. Well, if that is the discount price, then holy fucking shit! FedEx is expensive.

But, enough of this. I hear that people are starting to get sued for what they say on their websites so I hope I have been more vague and truthful than slanderous and misleading.

Oh, yeah, it's only been months in the making, but I have finally finished the first movement of my new piano sonatina. Or, not really a sonatina. At least, I'm not calling it a sonatina. It is the first new Outgrabe. Yeah, I like that name. I'm sticking with it. Way I figure it, most music names are more-or-less bullshit anyway so just make up a name. And, I've never been crazy about the totally bullshit dumb-fuck names that get slapped on most modern music.

Something I saw happen in music school. The students have been slaving away on their various and sundry pieces in composition workshop. The semester is over. It's time for the big end of show composition concert. And, what happens? Suddenly, you've got to have a title for the program. Come on. Come on. Program is due in five minutes. Sorry, this is the first time we've brought it up. Okay, maybe not the first time. Anyway, what is it called? So, yeah, the student stands there and has to think of a name real fast. Any old name. Well, it is just amazing some of the turkeys that people will think of under these conditions.

So, I've never been a big fan of the totally random bullshit name. I like something reasonable. I like the idea of the sonatina, impromptu, nocturne, prelude and all of that. I just happen to think they register almost as high on the bullshit scale as anything else. So, as long as we are making something up, I would just as soon make something up that is useful as opposed to totally random. And, I think Outgrabe fits the bill pretty good. It can be thrown into the same general bullshit category as nocturne, prelude, et al. and reused. Unlike some titles look good luck charm or tap dancing in the rain or twisted sister or whatever.

I mean, sure, you could make a serious out of any of those. I just happen to think it is dumb. And, all dumb things being equal, I go with Outgrabe until I get bored with it and use something completely different.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

News: Amazon.com finally locates the books I sent them

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:33:00 PDT

It's about freaking time, but Amazon.com finally found the copies of The Etymology of Fire and the Faire Folk of Gideon that I sent them.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 21 September, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:53:00 PDT

Wow, I was way off. And, I mean that I was so far off in my calculations for the cover price of The Faire Folk of Gideon and The Etymology of Fire that it borders on conscious denial or deliberate bungling or whatever you might want to call it. I mean, wow, I forgot how much of the cover price Amazon.com keeps, and I completely and utterly butchered how much it would cost to ship to them. The part that really amazes me is how easy it would have been to get Amazon's cut and the shipping price correct. And, yet, somehow I was so far off it isn't even funny. Amazon takes 55% of the cover price and not 50% as I had convinced myself. And, shipping has increased to a minimum of two-and-a-quarter per book instead of the buck-sixty that I had deluded myself into thinking.

So, yeah, currently I stand to loose about five-fifty for every copy of The Etymology of Fire that Amazon sells. Or put another way, the cover price should have been thirty dollars and fifty-six cents in order for me to earn a profit of exactly five cents.

But, who is going to pay thirty dollars and change for a copy of The Etymology of Fire? Nobody I know. Which is where the whole conscious self-delusion comes in. And, why I think I simply need to roll with it.

It was really tough to make the decision to run with the twenty-one dollar price tag. I mean I have very serious concerns that there isn't a person on this Earth who will be interested in buying the book for twenty-one bucks. If the price had been any higher, I wouldn't have done it. I simply would have gotten really bummed and not gone through with the idea.

So, I just have to go with it. Accept the fact that I'm just going to bleed money all over the place. And hope somebody buys them. That's what counts, right? People buying books. If enough people buy books, then the numbers will get better. The cost of shipping will fall as the quantity shipped increases, and less and less money will get flushed down the rabbit hole.

That's what you cling to. No matter how stupid it might be.

Now, if only Amazon would actually have copies in-stock. This is turning into a long, odd experience in-and-of itself. Not something I'm interested in going into here since the saga is ongoing. All I will say is that I've been tut-tutted by some people at the receiving end for having used the United States Postal Service.

The next cheapest option to the good-old US Post would have required an Etymology of Fire cover price of about thirty-eight dollars and thirty-eight cents, which is as close to an explanation as to why I used the US Post as I'm going to get right now.

None of which is what I had planned on typing here, anyway. I had wanted to write a note about the book editing process. Something I had planned to write in the last journal entry but forget when I made that rather impressive detour through bar-code land. Embarrassing. Funny. But embarrassing, too.

Anyway, I think The Etymology of Fire is the best written of the three books. It moves along the best and has the least detritus. It's not the most interesting of the three for subject matter. Not that how far would you go for what you believe is right isn't interesting. And, I do really like the bit where Mariama asks for the prisoner. So, yeah, how far would you go is not without interest. It just doesn't interest me as much as The Faire Folk of Gideon's issues with slavery and the search for self-worth or with The Magic Flute's tackling of repressed shame, fear and denial.

Which brings us around to The Magic Flute. The worst written of the three books. Especially toward the beginning. You can tell that the first chapter was written years before the last one. And, I didn't go do some re-writing because I've still got that thing about not re-writing and editing to a minimum.

This made The Magic Flute's typo hunt very interesting because I started with the last chapter and made my way forward. All-in-all, the writing at the end is pretty good. Things stayed pretty good as I worked my way forward; however, as I started to approach the beginning. I swear, it just started to make me cringe.

I don't mean that the subject matter sucks or anything. I just think I could have gone back over the text and maybe cleaned it some more. But, no, of course not. Warts and all.

It's embarrassing; after all, it is the beginning of the book. I just hope people like the ugly, ungainly writing enough to stick around until things get better toward the end.

Just my opinion, of course. The whole thing might suck. Oh, well. You can read the first bunch of chapters on-line. Judge for yourself.

—
copyright © 2008 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved

Journal: 31 August, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:08:00 PDT

It's only been about a zillion years since the last one of these here journal entries. So, let us see what I can do without breaking anything.

The big news is my renewed efforts to get The Etymology of Fire and The Faire Folk of Gideon into Amazon.com. See, the big problem with Amazon, and with bookstores in general, is how much of the money they get out of the deal. Simply put, they get half. Yes, half. So, if the cover price is, say, $11.95, then Amazon gets $5.98. Now, if the book costs me $5.30 to make, then I only get a 68¢ profit. But, wait, there is more. Amazon doesn't care how much it costs me to get the book to them, and it has generally costs me $1.60 per book to get them to Amazon. Shockingly enough, this situation results in me loosing money every time somebody buys a copy of The Magic Flute from Amazon.

The end result of all of this, of course, has been my general disinterest in shelling out a couple of thousands dollars to have another big pile of books sitting around my apartment, making demands on what to watch on TV, refusing to use a coaster. And, then loosing money on those rare occasions when Amazon sells a copy.

Now, what would have been nice would have been if I could have found a nice print-on-demand service from which to shell out a much smaller pile of money for a much smaller pile of books that would still carry a half-decent cover price. Always the first thing I would be asked whenever I would tell people about self-publishing. Why not use a print-on-demand service? I think I've gone into that topic before. Generally, I don't trust them. They seem like glorified vanity presses, and they still cost a lot. Even the print-on-demand service, I finally did trust enough to start using was still way too expensive to get books into Amazon. Seriously, just go look at the cover price of my books at Cafe Press. I would have to charge close to forty bucks a book in order not to loose money from Amazon. Sucks, I know.

So, what finally happened was I just kept hearing about another print-on-demand service, Lulu.com. Now, it is true that Lulu was one of the first services I ever checked out. I must have taken a look about the same time I was looking at Cafe Press, and I just didn't like their service. Their interface sucked. Their cover creation system was crude. And, I was generally left with the impression that they would produce a very low quality book.

So, I ignored them. I grumbled about my two other novels lacking a dead tree presence. And, I concentrated on remembering how to do music.

But, I continued to hear about Lulu.com. Not much. Just that they were different. They didn't try to screw over their user base. They were a good service. So, I finally took another look. Well, it had been long enough I couldn't tell if their interface had improved, but I did discover that you could submit your own wrap-around covers, which was a big improvement. And, they charged a lot less for the privilege of using their service, which got me very excited.

I mean, the situation still wasn't ideal. They wouldn't ship directly to Amazon unless you paid them a hundred bucks. Meaning I would have to pay for Lulu to send me the books, and then I would have to pay to send the books to Amazon. Sucks, I know, but I thought, maybe, I could work with this.

I figured out Lulu's format. I calculated a page count. I was able to get a cost estimate out of Lulu. I took a guess about how much it would then cost me to ship to Amazon and discovered that this might work.

Okay, I'm dreaming, I know. A cover price of twenty-one or Twenty-two fifty per book is far from ideal, but I'm pretty sure that I did all of my math well enough that I don't actually loose any money in the situation. I mean, I think I will get less than a dollar per book sold by Amazon, but that is better than loosing about a dollar per book sold by Amazon.

All of which happened round about March of this year, and I immediately set about formatting my books for Lulu. The first problem turned out to be the fact that Adobe had replaced PageMaker with InDesign. So, I had to learn a whole new program. Fortunately, InDesign has a lot in common with PageMaker, In fact, InDesign has some huge improvements over PageMaker. So, that was really cool.

I figured out InDesign. I converted my layouts. Of course, me being me, I couldn't just important my PageMaker formats into InDesign. It is inelegant to my way of thinking. You just never know what little things are going to suddenly jump up and prove that the PageMaker to InDesign conversion didn't go as well as you may have liked. So, yes, I made all new layouts from scratch. Or, almost from scratch, as the case may be. I did import enough PageMaker layouts to be able to see what I had done. I would then enter the info into a clean InDesign template, and we were rolling.

Of course, I then realized that I didn't know which version of the texts were the most recent and had the most up-to-date corrections. Well, this was a pickle. I finally decided to just pick which version I thought was the most recent and work with that. This proved to have its own problems as that text only existed in PageMaker format, and I discovered that InDesign wouldn't import the raw text the same way that PageMaker could import text from other PageMaker files. InDesign would only take the PageMaker text with all of the formatting quite messily intact.

Fortunately, I discovered that I could export the raw text from InDesign, which created a rather amusing situation. I had to open the PageMaker file in InDesign. Let the conversion process work its magic. Export the raw text to a pathetic little ASCII text file. Open the text file in OpenOffice. Apply the OpenOffice styles I had created. Save the formatted text as a Microsoft Word document. And, then, finally import the MS Word file back into InDesign. Yeah, wow.

I'm sure there were many different ways to accomplish the same thing, including just working with the stupid converted PageMaker file, but I refused. Nothing simple is worth doing easily, and all of that.

Besides, I wanted to be able to edit the text in a half-decent word processor such as OpenOffice. Sure, InDesign's text editor is much better than PageMaker's text editor, but it still sucks in comparison to OpenOffice.

Which brought me to the next step in my grand plan. Re-editing the damn text and stamping out as many of the surviving fucking typographical errors as I could find. I mean, damn, there were still a shit load of those in The Etymology of Fire and The Faire Folk of Gideon. Made me mad. Finally started to absorb enough of my time that I had to stop working on music. Yeah, sucks. It's been months since I put any work into the new sonatina. And, just as I was starting to think it didn't suck, too. It's still just laying there in all of its not quite tonal glory and everything.

But, the fucking books had to be re-read. They had to. I was about to put those books into a format I couldn't update whenever I felt like it. I mean, there were going to be copies mooching smokes and drinking out of the toilet here. They weren't going to take revisions. I had to get the text fixed. It was embarrassing. And, The Etymology of Fire had some really cringe worthy errors in it. Really. Fucking typos.

So, first thing I had to do was figure out a way to re-read the fuckers that wouldn't result in my mind automatically correcting the errors in my head. I had to see them. I had to read them. Note them. Correct them.

So, I read the damn things backwards. Well, not quite backwards. Just read the chapters out-of-order. Or, backwards as the case may be. Read a random chapter. Start with the last chapter and work my way forward. Something like that. Just break up the flow.

Good news. Bad news. I found lots of typos. Pissed me off. Fucking typos. Took months. Two months, anyway. Yeah, I didn't really have much time or energy to work on this. I still had a day job, after all. And, that day job was burning a lot of time and energy. Lots of stuff to do. Exhausting days. Blah blah blah.

So, finally done. Mistakes found. Edits entered into the text. Files saved. Imported into InDesign. Layouts done. PDF versions generated. Covers designed. Submitted.

Oh, hey, I almost forgot. I found a website that uses open source software to generate ISBN barcodes. Free. Holy shit! This was manna straight from god's mouth to my ear. A website that hated barcode companies as much as I did. Those fucking spite-filled jackals. Those pestilent perverters of other people's bottoms. Corrupters of small sheep and llamas. Eat shit, motherfucking cocksuckers. I spit in your general direction and call you a naughty thing. You should be ashamed of yourself! How dare you lecture me on my business practices! Telling me how you hoped I taught my children better than I acted! You were shit! You were nothing but a bully and extortionist! Threatening to have my ass arrested if I didn't give you sixty-six bucks for something I had nothing to do with. Refusing to listen to a word I said when I even suggested the possibility that the job number written on the check may have been an error. Just because the erroneous job number just happened to match another one of your job numbers doesn't automatically mean that I am responsible for your delinquent account. Jesus fucking Christ! Turns out the erroneous job number wasn't even put on the check by me. And, I've got the canceled check to prove it. What does that say about your business practices and how you raise your own damn kids, you hate-filled sour old whore?

But, I'm feeling much better about the whole situation. After all, I sent the company a certified letter, which for all they knew contained a cashier's check for sixty-six bucks, and they returned it unopened. Marked, return to sender. Fucking victory!

But, I digress.

Edits done. Cover made. Price chosen. Fingers crossed. Fifty copies show up on my doorstep. Which means fifty copies of The Etymology of Fire and fifty copies of The Faire Folk of Gideon. But, I can live with that. I may not be crazy about the format. The books being a little bigger than I would like. But, I can live with that, too.

They've been entered into Books-in-Print. I'm just waiting for Amazon to recognize them. How long does it take Amazon to update their database, anyway?

Well, anyway, Amazon will recognize the books and ask me to send them about two copies. Amazon never asks for more than two copies at a time. No idea why. Just what they do.

And, then I get to sit around as absolutely nobody orders a copy. Nobody's interested. Oh, well, they exist. What more do I want, right?

News: The Faire Folk of Gideon available at Lulu.com

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:41:00 PDT

Actually, The Faire Folk of Gideon: Pin the Tail on the Donkey has been available at Lulu.com for awhile now. I simply forgot to post a news item about it. At least, I remembered to include a link on the books page, and one of these days I may even get around to writing a journal entry about it.

News: The Etymology of Fire available at Lulu.com

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:41:00 PDT

The Etymology of Fire is now available at both CafePress.com and Lulu.com. Freshly edited, again. Got ride of a whole bunch of embarrassing typos that I didn't even know where still there.

Journal: 9 March, 2008

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 9 Mar 2008 14:58:00 PDT

Well, it only took something like three years, but I've finally finished that stupid piano sonatina cycle. It was only intended to be a refresher exercise finished absolutely as quickly as possible. As little thought as possible was supposed to go into the pieces. It wasn't about being good. It was about being done. But, like all projects, one thing happens after another, and the next thing you know is three years have passed. Okay, it may have just been two and a half years, but I think it's been three. And, I'm not about to try digging up when I actually started and then doing the math. If I did, I might realize that it has been closer to four years, and nobody needs to go there.

So, the Sonatina in B-Flat Major is done, and I really don't know what to think of it. Can't decide if I like it. For one thing, it is much too long. That scared the shit out of me while I was working on it since I don't happen to feel that a sonatina should be twenty minutes. Turns out there is precedent for it but that is beside the point. At least, I don't have to worry about people pointing and laughing. Well, they might still. It's not as if the sonatina is any great work of art. Fortunately there, I wasn't exactly making any great effort to create a work of art. It was just supposed to be a fun little piece of shit sonatina.

I actually do like the first movement quite a bit. The second movement, I don't know. I've got mixed feelings. There is just way too much oom-pah-pah for my taste, but I simply could not figure out how to get ride of it. Oh, well.

Of the five sonatinas, my favorite is definitely the Sonatina in C minor, and I'm especially happy with the fuguette in the third movement. I was going to do another fuguette in the B-Flat Major Sonatina, but that bastard was getting so out of hand as it was that I didn't want to get into it.

It was also taking way too long. It didn't help that everything I did in December had to be thrown out. Yeah, that was thrilling. I had gotten this stupid idea into my head that the third movement should start with a slow introduction. Spent most of December working on that. Then, I start in on the third movement proper and realize just what a damn fool idea the slow intro was. It didn't work leading into the quick step. Very jarring. And, then I came to my senses about how long this monstrosity already was. A slow introduction? What? Fifteen to twenty minutes isn't long enough? So, out it went. Then, January, work was very crazy. Nothing got done on the sonatina then.

But, at last, the project is done. Now, on to something a little less tonal and right into a brick wall. It has just amazed me the amount of second guessing I've subjected myself to in the past couple of days. I've got my fingers crossed I've passed it, but we shall see.

It all has to do with expectations. I mean, I sit down. I start piddling around with an idea, and the thought that people will just scoff at it as being derivative of Bartok or something just goes screaming around my head. I mean, mother-fucker! What is up with that? It can hardly be said that I am overly concerned with what people thought of my work. If I was, I certainly would have never started the sonatina project. People going on about it being regressive or whatnot. What should I care? So, what's with worrying about a more interesting piece being regressive?

Again, it's not exactly as if I'm expecting this first one to be any great work of art. Again, the point is for it to be done. Have fun. And, be done. That's about it for expectations. So, I don't know where these thoughts come from.

Fortunately, I am impressively happy with how the first dozen or so measures have worked out. I feel I'm stumbling around a little bit but that is okay. I think a lot of that has to do with how much my piano skills have faded, and I can't just plunk it out good at the piano. A lot of doubt about how it really sounds goes there. So, progress is slow. Very slow. A dozen measures, as I said. Then, again, I try to tell myself it has only been a week.

So, there we are.

And, one of these days I will get back into writing more interesting journal entries. For now, this is as good as it gets.

News: Sonatina in B-Flat Major Score Posted

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sat, 1 Mar 2008 14:42:00 PST

The score for my Piano Sonatina in B-Flat Major has finally been posted to my website. It took freaking long enough to finish, and the score is so long that I've actually posted each movement as a seperate file. The other sonatinas were all posted as single files for not really overly defined reasons. I just felt like it, I guess.

Journal: 16 December, 2007

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:24:00 PST

Well, I've reached the unmistakable conclusion that I will not be able to finish the last piano sonatina before the end of the year, which is depressing as hell because I was really looking forward to finally being done with the five piano sonatinas and I was really looking forward to starting the new year with much more interesting music. Oh, well, that is what comes with setting a goal and sticking to it. I mean, setting the goal of doing five piano sonatinas. I know I could have stopped with four, and I am really rather proud of that Sonatina in C minor. But, I just wanted to stick with it.

Of course, I didn't know this last one was just going to spiral all out of control. The first movement alone is eight minutes. Scared the hell out of me while I was working on it. These sonatinas are supposed to be short. The whole thing is supposed to clock in at eight to ten minutes at most. Not just the first movement. I can't decided if it even qualifies as a sonatina because of the length, but I've made the decision. Screw it. I'm calling it a sonatina even if the whole thing winds up clocking in at twenty minutes. It's my damn music, and I can call it any damn thing I want.

And, even after I realized that the damn thing was going all crazy and spiraling out of control, I tried to do everything I could to reign it in. I didn't repeat the exposition. I tried to truncate the recapitulation, but the first and second themes just refused to be shortened. Taking a piece out just left the section flopping around like a dead fish. And, then there was the coda. The damn coda. I tried to make it short. I kept cutting it down. But, I quickly discovered that I had built up so much momentum over the course of the movement that the damn thing sounded like it just crashed into a brick wall if I shortened it. So, I kept having to add to it and add to it. And, the damn thing just kept getting longer and longer. And, finally, it screeched to a halt without sounding too much like the Keystone Cops falling all over each other.

So, I've got eight minutes and four hundred and something measures, which has also got me puzzling over the presentation. I mean, I've done all of the other sonatinas as single MP3 files and single Scorch files, but I don't know if I want to do that this time. The whole thing will just be so damn huge. I think I'm going to have to leave each movement as a separate MP3 and Scorch file. After all, the Red King Outgrabe is three separate files so I think I've got precedent for leaving three separate files. It's not really what I want to do. I want the five piano sonatinas to be consistent in presentation, but I think I'm just going to have to make the exception.

So, yeah, I don't know how long the whole thing is going to be. And, at this point, I'm really just hoping I can finish the second movement before the end of the year. Unfortunately, even that isn't looking too promising. I just had to throw out all of my work on the B section because it was just so different from the A section that it didn't work. I know I was going for contrast, but you reach the B section and it is as if you've just suddenly crashed into a completely different work. Damn, but that isn't how it is supposed to go. So, I'm trying to salvage what I can. I think. And, I really am pretty desperately hopeful about this. I think I can salvage something out of my discarded B section material. I don't know how much. I don't know if it is going to work, but I'm trying. I think I can make it work. I don't know. We shall see. The whole second movement has been giving me fits, and I'm oscillating pretty wildly between thinking it is good and thinking it is the most awful piece of crap that I have ever tried to make. There is so much oom-pah-pah that it just makes me want to wretch. Then, I try to change it, and it just doesn't work. Nothing works except oom-pah-pah. Driving me nuts.

Oh, well, we shall see how it goes.

News: Outgrabe for Violin & Double Bass Score Posted

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 14:18:00 PST

The score for my Outgrabe for Violin and Double Bass has now been posted to my website. This is one of the three pieces that I was commissioned to write while in gradute school, and I'm finally getting around to putting up on my website.

Journal: 30 September, 2007

keith@stormsdream.com (Keith Jones) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:37:00 PDT

This has got to be the longest I have gone without writing a journal entry. Yes, that fact has been nagging at me as I've said far too many times before that I have this irrational need to keep the website updated. Strangely enough, it hasn't really been bothering me that much, and I think that has something to do with the fact that I've been doing pretty good with the music output. I mean, it only took three months to churn out that last piano sonatina, and that sonatina just rocks. I mean, I know that I am biased and all of that, but it rocks.

So, I really haven't felt a need to updated the journal, and I certainly don't want to update it with any old random crap just to have an updated. If I can churn out a new piece of music every three months or so, well, I just think that is as good as churning out a new journal entry every couple of weeks. Oh, yeah, I would much rather work on the music than spend time on the journal if it means more music.

Besides, there really hasn't been that much I've felt compelled to prattle on about here. I really hate wasteful journal entries. Dumb entries. Dry entries. Meaningless little factoid entires. Yeah, I hate those. In fact, I really rather hate the last couple of entries I had done because they were all really rather on the dry and unimpassioned side. I did this. I posted that. I reported that I was two-thirds of the way through some damn shit or other.

Well, I was trying to keep the journal updated. I was even trying to run shorter entries if that was all the time and interest I had for it. But, they sucked. They just really sucked, and I didn't want to keep producing suckers like that.

Not that I'm saying this entry is much better. It's little more than an apology, isn't it?

So, I'm working on the last in my piano sonatina series. Yes, once I am done with this last one, I haven't really decided what I am going to do. It'll either stay a little on the traditional side but with more instruments. Or, it'll be a little more on the wild side. A little closer in tone to the Outgrabe for Clarinet and Piano or The Red King Outgrabe. Yeah, a little more like that.

I haven't decided. I doubt I will decide until I get there. Don't want to go planning too much too far ahead. I would much rather go with what feels right at the time.

There are a couple of things I have thought about prattling on about in this here journal, but nothing I really feel compelled to write about. I started to write an entry about The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I sort-of staggered to a close. There really is something I feel strongly about regarding that story, and it's something I always feel that gets overlooked. But, I just really haven't felt compelled to skip other stuff in order to get to it.

Oh, well, one of these days.