Who knows of some good ebook creation software? Because I just looked up Adobe InDesign, saw they want 50 bucks a month, and passed out. Call me old fashioned, but fifty bucks a month just to rent software? What am I missing?
Or do you format your own ebooks? Maybe to hire an expert to do it for you is the way to go?
“When you want something, all the world conspires in helping you achieve it.”
– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Have you ever read, The Alchemist? Considered Paulo Coelho’s seminal work, it is basically a guidebook for following one’s dreams. The protagonist, Santiago, is a mere shepherd, who after dreaming about treasure buried near Egyptian pyramids, goes off an adventure to find it, or in other words, to make his dream come true. The story isn’t so much about the treasure as it is about the journey of progressing toward dream fulfillment, and how people often abandon their dream in the name of comfort and stability.
What do you think about this quote? When you want something, does the whole world “conspire” to help you achieve it? Coelho talks about “omens” or signs – little slights of hand provided by the universe that we might miss if we aren’t looking, opportunities that present themselves to help us on our way toward our dreams, and thus, this is how the universe “conspires” to help us.
Personally, there are times when I feel like the universe is conspiring against all of my dreams, but that’s just the opinion of one lowly cynic. What about you?
Face it. At Christmas time, you beat yourself up pretty bad, didn’t you? “I told myself I was going to fix X problem last year and another year has gone by!”
Yes. Yes, it certainly has. They always do. Those years go by quick.
And so, with renewed vim and great vigor, we march gallantly into the New Year.
By Christmas 2015, I vow I will, in no particular order: lose weight, exercise more, take better care of myself, write my novel, become nicer to my fellow man, find my special someone, save more money, tell that jerk that’s been bothering me where to stick his/her insults, run a marathon, dress better, eat better, learn how to speak Italian, donate my time to a soup kitchen, sponsor one of those African kids they keep showing in commercials, take dancing lessons, visit another country, pick up the phone and call X relative, friend, neighbor, long lost podiatrist that I haven’t spoken to in ages and am now just afraid to because it will seem weird since so much time has gone by. I will bake a cake, go ice fishing, kayak down the river rabbits, fight a grizzly bear single handed and skin him alive using nothing but my wits, pelting him into submission with sticks and berries. I will go skydiving. I will go snorkeling. I will go parasailing. I will learn how to play the guitar, piano, ukulele, and the French horn. I will take yoga classes and start saying things like “Namaste.” I will one-up Ebenezer Scrooge and find one starving orphan child per day, and give said child enough money to buy a goose – living or dead, it doesn’t matter what kind of goose the child gets to me, the point is, the child will be able to eat the goose, or keep it as a pet to distract himself from his hunger, whichever he so may choose to do. I will develop mental telepathy and change the channel on my television with just a flick of the wrist, no remote control required. I’ll develop ESP and convince others to watch ESPN.
And while we’re on the subject of television, here are some bad habits I vow to rid my life of once in for all. I will turn my television off and never turn it on again until New Year’s 2016. I will not watch Mad Men, Justified, Walking Dead, Reruns of Breaking Bad, Homeland, Fargo, Game of Thrones, True Detective, nor will I watch the new crap they churn out, get me addicted to, then cancel. I will smash my Xbox with a hammer and vow to not play a video game ever this entire year. My body will be a temple and I will be its master. I will embrace a healthy diet. I will not eat one item of junk food and will never visit a fast food restaurant in the entire year of 2015. I will drink nothing but rarified mineral water from the artesian wells of Iceland, collected and bottled by actual, legitimate Icelanders and not just wannabes who move to Iceland for the swanky nightlife scene and then just try to blend in. I will eat nothing but hummus, lettuce, carrots, and if I’m feeling crazy, I’ll allow a full blown watercress sandwich with extra cress. I will not utter one swear word this entire year. Anyone who offends me will not be offered a return insult but rather, a caring and concerned ear to listen to all their problems, no matter how bullshit they may be.
Why am I doing all of this? Because it is the New Year! I was depressed at my various Christmas social gatherings, lamenting how I vowed to do all of these things by the end of last year, and yet there I was, at Christmas 2014, still watching Mad Men and the Walking Dead, swearing at everyone, playing video games, not walking any marathons whatsoever, a Big Mac in one hand and a bottle of Norwegian Ice Water in the other. I hadn’t bought a single orphan a livestock bird that they could either eat or keep as a pet. I hadn’t touched a single vat of hummus the entire year. Italian people were coming up to me at the Christmas party left and right and I was completely clueless as to what in the hell they were saying. My long lost podiatrist was still left with the feeling that I didn’t give a shit about him. I had yet to learn Mental Telepathy, my guitar, ukulele, and French horn were collecting dust in a corner, and that African kid was still unsponsored, despite all the coffee I drank like a selfish imbecile, any one of those cups of coffees could have been used to purchase vital medicines and care packages for said starving child. And you want to know the real coup de grace? That guy who’s a real jerk that I never told off? He and the grizzly bear were openly mocking me the entire Christmas party.
But there will be no more of that crap this year! For I, the Bookshelf Battler, a book scholar, renowned all over the world and some parts of Mars, depending on their satellite receptions, truly understand the power of a New Year! New Year’s Day is a momentous time, a time when the disappointments of the previous year are still fresh, and yet there is still hope for the new year, the hope that I can look at the calendar, and there will be 365 fresh days that I can start putting to good use, with the hope that by the 2015 Christmas party my colon will be a hummus lined picture of good health, that entire flocks of geese will be donated to orphans, and maybe even to African kids if they’ll accept them and allow me to keep my coffee money, that I will wow everyone at the next Christmas party by playing the ukulele while making all the Christmas ornaments dance with my mental telepathy skills. I will not attend the Christmas party alone, but rather, with the supermodel I will convince to go with me using my newfound powers of ESP. When people at the 2015 Christmas party ask me, “Can you believe what Don Draper did?” I will say, “Hey, no spoilers pal!” If I can’t find the bathroom, I’ll go up to the closest Italian person and ask, “D’ove il bagno?” What? Did I just run, “Where is the bathroom through Google Translate?” No, you dirty son of a…no, wait, hey, come here, what’s the matter? Tell me all your problems. I’m sure they are all legitimate and not made up at all.
Yes, at that Christmas party at the end of this year, I will wow the attendees with pictures of my skydiving, paralleling, snorkeling trip – where I did all three at the same time by jumping out of a plane, falling to just above the Earth, where I then lassoed a boat, allowed it to pull me for a while, then cut anchor, and swam three miles with the fish off the coast of Capastrano.
AND AS GOD AS MY WITNESS, I WILL DO IT ALL IN MY NEW BEAR SKIN COAT.
Yes, I know this will all happen, because 2014 is not only gone, but it was a tremendous disappointment. I will not make the same mistakes. I will not fall back into the same bad habits. This will be the year that I spend each and every day doing the right thing and making the exactly correct decisions because gosh darn it, I now have FINALLY learned the lesson that the next year will be over in the blink of an eye, so I’d best make the most of it, so that I am not depressed at the 2015 Christmas party.
What? It’s Jan. 2 already? Fuck it. Somebody get me a Big Mac. Well played, Bear. Well played.
Has anyone ever considered when to use a pen name? Well, I suppose that’s a dumb question. If you’re using a pen name, you’re not going to tell me that your name is a pen name. Just as I most assuredly affirm that the name on my birth certificate reads, “Bookshelf Q. Battle.”
It’s something I’ve been thinking about, if I ever do get around to writing and/or publishing a novel.
CONS
1) Writing a novel is a lot of work to not get some credit and name recognition out of it. Even if it is only a little bit of recognition and credit, it is better than nothing.
2) You pick one and then what? You have to introduce yourself as “Dirk Hardfist” or whatever you chose as your pen name, at every gathering you go to in the writer’s world?
3) You kind of end up losing your little impact on history. If you write a novel that withstands the test of time, people of the future will be all like, “Wow, that Dirk Hardfist was a helluva writer!” But no one will be talking about you.
4) You could try to split the difference – use a pen name until you’ve established a successful and profitable writing career, then announce to your fans who you are, but really, by then, everyone will just want Dirk Hardfist.
5) Damn it. Now I kinda want to be Dirk Hardfist.
PROS
1) We live in a sad, ridiculous, petty world where everyone claims to be insulted at the drop of a hat. While I don’t intend to write anything too salacious or scandalous, there are people who can find a reason to be offended by anything. There are people who are offended over frigging Harry Potter!
2) Should the writing thing not pan out, I’d just assume to live out my normal, bland life in peace and not have the easily offended types hounding me in my personal life, demanding that I be strung up from the tallest yard arm because I dared express myself through the written word. I can see it now. “I only sold three copies of my book on Amazon (two of them were bought by my Aunt Gertrude) but everyone in town is coming at me with pitchforks because I wrote a naughty swear word on page 4!”
Hello Bookshelf Battlers,
Just a quick note to wish you all a Happy New Year!
One year down, and I’m at 400 blog followers, and almost 2200 twitter followers. Let’s keep them coming!
As always, thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to discussing more books with you in 2015!
Is it worth the money? Anyone ever use it before? Thoughts? What does it do that normal word processing software does not?
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
Life – it’s all a matter of perspective.
The next time I pour a bowl of cereal and feel a fit coming on when I realize there’s no more milk, I’ll take a deep breathe and remember the choice Louis Zamperini had – jump out of his life raft and into water infested with hungry sharks, or stay in and risk being shot by a Japanese aircraft doing a strafing run overhead.
When you think about a situation like that, it kind of makes the little, everyday nuisances that we allow to drive us crazy seem trivial, doesn’t it?
How about when Louis, after spending so much time drifting in a raft at sea, only to be thrown in a brutal POW camp where he’s tortured and beaten, suddenly gets an offer from the Japanese government – read an anti-American statement over the radio and you’ll be allowed to live out the rest of the war in nice accommodations, with all the food and luxuries you want.
Naturally, we all say, “No, I’d never take that deal.” As a mere, humble book blogger, I’ll never find myself in such a situation, but I’d like to think I’d tell my captors where they could stick such a deal. Do any of us really know how we’d respond to such an offer until we find ourselves in that position? Heroically, Louis refuses the deal.
Overall, it is a movie about choices – forks in the road where Louis could have gone in one direction or the other. In his youth, he was an angry little punk who was a menace to his town until his older brother convinced him to channel his energy into joining the track team.
He becomes an amazing runner, good enough to go all the way to the pre-World War II Olympics (which, ironically, were held in Germany), leading to an eerie scene where American, German, and Japanese athletes are all standing around like friends – who knew at the time that would be the last time they’d be doing that for awhile. He’d hoped to return to the next Olympic Games, which had been scheduled to be held in Tokyo of all places, but we all know how that turned out.
It’s hard to find a more class act than Louis. His fellow POW’s are ordered to punch him in the face. He’s more worried about telling them it is ok and to not feel bad about it than he is about, well, his face.
I could go on and on, but you get the drift. The next time I’m late for work and ready to fling myself off a cliff because I can’t find my keys, I will think about brave Louis defying the Japanese POW camp Sgt. and lifting the beam over his head, and realize that I am a major wuss in comparison.
The movie is based on author Laura Hillenbrand’s non-fiction book of the same name. You might remember her as the author of another non-fiction work turned movie, Seabiscuit.
I’ve never read either book and unfortunately, I have a bad habit of never reading a book once they’ve made a movie about it. If you’ve read either one, or just want to commiserate about how Louis makes us all look like pansies when compared to his saint-like bravery, feel free to do so in the comment section.
Bookshelf Battle 