Reviewing POD Books

Since I've begun the process of seriously considering a self-publishing course for my novel which is now again without a publisher (See previous post, and I apologize for the vulgarity), I think an appropriate course for this blog is to pursue more in the realm of self-publishing in general.

Ideally, I would like to review POD and small press novels for my magazine, Brew City, and dedicate this blog to the extraction of the few self-published gems that exist out there. Because they do exist. There are options available to those of us who enjoy reading but can't find something of interest being put out by the big New York Publishers.

My inspiration from this came from the Girl on Demand, who has since chosen to end her career as the most popular (and only) reviewer of POD books in the business. I'm going to do my best continue that, so stay posted and I'll include more information ...

The end of a month

To celebrate an already shitty month, I just received a nice fat package from my publisher. In it was my manuscript for my first book and the CD with the manuscript on it and a letter. In the letter, my publisher explained its decision to NOT publish my book after all, after two years of waiting, after two years of planning and marketing.

Let me put this in perspective: everything I did for the past two years, every decision I made, it was all centered around my first novel. My first novel, and it was going to be published by one of the biggest independent publishers in the country. They told me to get blurbs for the back of the book, so I did. They told me to start a blog, so I did. I don't even fucking enjoying blogging. I don't like the concept of blogging, and I never know what to say in this fucking thing.

So from here on out, this blog will be used primarily for the purpose of presenting information related to Brew City Magazine and occasionally a rant like this one.

Fuck you, Harbor House.

New Fiction Markets

I don't know why that last post happened twice, but I suppose it's relevant given the serious tone and all.

So let's lighten things up. I'm not in the mood for any more damn drama of any kind, and I don't particularly want to keep re-visiting my fragile mortality for the time being. I wrote a new article for Suite101 with some new market info for writers:

5 New Fiction Markets

On Mortality, Violence, and Consequences

On Monday, March 12th of 2007 I faced my own mortality. For the first time in my 25 years of life, I could see death out of the corner of my eye. It’s always been there in some for or another, be it some tragic unforeseeable accident or unseen disease or cataclysmic disaster, but on this particular night I became aware of its presence, of just how close it could truly be.

The man walked into our local Starbucks dressed in heavy clothes, wearing a cloth over his face and a hood and a pair of dark sunglasses to complete the macabre ensemble. I ask myself sometimes if perhaps seeing his eyes would alleviate myself of some of the nightmares, if perhaps I could have sensed that there truly was a human being behind all those clothes because in my mind’s eye, looking back at it, all I see is an outfit, a faceless being with no emotion and nothing for me to sympathize with.

He pointed his semi-automatic gun at me when I told him I had the keys to the cash register. I told him I could open the drawers and he pointed the gun at my stomach and when I think about it I can still feel the coldness along the left side of my abdomen, the icy expectation of pain that could have come at any minute. I opened the drawers calmly, spoke to the man in an even voice, explaining my every action and fought the numbness running through my body.

He told me to lay on the ground and so I did. I put my hands over my head, fearing he might turn back and shoot me and somehow thinking—amused even at the time of the event—that my hands might stop a bullet from piercing my skull.

And now her I sit, contemplating the event, running it over and over in my mind. At night, it’s all I can think about. Did this robber know how I would feel after having a gun pointed at my stomach? It’s the feeling that must be running through the minds of the dozens of individuals in our neighborhood who have been robbed just in this past few weeks alone. These nagging images that won’t go away, images of this amalgamated monster made up of denims and cottons and of course a pair of cheap sunglasses.

And as I work through this, I can’t help but wonder if this faceless victimizer can truly comprehend the consequences of his actions or his potential actions. Could he kill someone? Is it possible? We live in a society where violence on television and in movies is often rewarded, where the bad guys have no family and no friends and no good qualities and no mental illnesses and are simply “bad.”

That wimpy lawyer in “Jurassic Park” who got eaten on the john by a T-rex? Probably had a family. The psycho family in “The Devil’s Rejects” killed a lot of people, people who begged and screamed and yet even movie critics were rooting for the bad guys to “win.”

The Good Guys die valiantly, looking death in the eye bravely, but again there is no mention of the family that must bury him, the friends who must mourn him. If he survives by killing the Bad Guy, there is no grief counseling, no therapist to help the Good Guy cope with the fact that he has taken another human life, no matter how justifiable, as if it’s all in a day’s work and there are no nagging thoughts or nagging images to keep him up at night.

James Bond can kill with ease. After taking down a villain, the movie ends, because that’s the entertaining part. No one wants to see Bond take down a bad guy halfway through and then spend the second half of the movie in grief counseling, right? So how does that affect us, seeing these images again and again, watching violent act after violent act without an understanding of the consequences?

Every action carries consequences, and violent acts are no exception no matter how small or insignificant they may be.

Or justified.

On Mortality, Violence, and Consequences

On Monday, March 12th of 2007 I faced my own mortality. For the first time in my 25 years of life, I could see death out of the corner of my eye. It’s always been there in some for or another, be it some tragic unforeseeable accident or unseen disease or cataclysmic disaster, but on this particular night I became aware of its presence, of just how close it could truly be.

The man walked into our local Starbucks dressed in heavy clothes, wearing a cloth over his face and a hood and a pair of dark sunglasses to complete the macabre ensemble. I ask myself sometimes if perhaps seeing his eyes would alleviate myself of some of the nightmares, if perhaps I could have sensed that there truly was a human being behind all those clothes because in my mind’s eye, looking back at it, all I see is an outfit, a faceless being with no emotion and nothing for me to sympathize with.

He pointed his semi-automatic gun at me when I told him I had the keys to the cash register. I told him I could open the drawers and he pointed the gun at my stomach and when I think about it I can still feel the coldness along the left side of my abdomen, the icy expectation of pain that could have come at any minute. I opened the drawers calmly, spoke to the man in an even voice, explaining my every action and fought the numbness running through my body.

He told me to lay on the ground and so I did. I put my hands over my head, fearing he might turn back and shoot me and somehow thinking—amused even at the time of the event—that my hands might stop a bullet from piercing my skull.

And now her I sit, contemplating the event, running it over and over in my mind. At night, it’s all I can think about. Did this robber know how I would feel after having a gun pointed at my stomach? It’s the feeling that must be running through the minds of the dozens of individuals in our neighborhood who have been robbed just in this past few weeks alone. These nagging images that won’t go away, images of this amalgamated monster made up of denims and cottons and of course a pair of cheap sunglasses.

And as I work through this, I can’t help but wonder if this faceless victimizer can truly comprehend the consequences of his actions or his potential actions. Could he kill someone? Is it possible? We live in a society where violence on television and in movies is often rewarded, where the bad guys have no family and no friends and no good qualities and no mental illnesses and are simply “bad.”

That wimpy lawyer in “Jurassic Park” who got eaten on the john by a T-rex? Probably had a family. The psycho family in “The Devil’s Rejects” killed a lot of people, people who begged and screamed and yet even movie critics were rooting for the bad guys to “win.”

The Good Guys die valiantly, looking death in the eye bravely, but again there is no mention of the family that must bury him, the friends who must mourn him. If he survives by killing the Bad Guy, there is no grief counseling, no therapist to help the Good Guy cope with the fact that he has taken another human life, no matter how justifiable, as if it’s all in a day’s work and there are no nagging thoughts or nagging images to keep him up at night.

James Bond can kill with ease. After taking down a villain, the movie ends, because that’s the entertaining part. No one wants to see Bond take down a bad guy halfway through and then spend the second half of the movie in grief counseling, right? So how does that affect us, seeing these images again and again, watching violent act after violent act without an understanding of the consequences?

Every action carries consequences, and violent acts are no exception no matter how small or insignificant they may be.

Or justified.

On Not Voting For Hillary

I wrote another article on the problems regarding Hillary Clinton for president, with a special focus on her campaign contributions and the problems it possesses when it comes to lobbying. It's a passionate topic for me, because the the connections between large money contributions to political campaigns and later ... shall we say "Motivated decisions"? It's a troubling aspect, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a politician to support in large elections.

Why Clinton can't be president

New Magazine updates, new article

I seem to be blessed with an endless supply of story ideas nowadays ... this past week, while working my part-time job at Starbucks, I was robbed at gunpoint. Talk about a fucking wake-up call, well there it was pointed right at my stomach. Not only that, these robbers as a group have hit over 25 businesses in our usually quiet neighborhood! Good story idea, but I sure as hell don't want to go through it again.

I have a new article up at Suite101 about Stephen King.

Also there are some new updates to Brew City Magazine.

New Writing Articles

I'll be publishing all of my writing articles on Suite101.com from this point on, and will hopefully be continuing it on a weekly if not bi-weekly basis. The more articles I write, the more I can help writers, the more my editing business can grow, the more I can get my name out, etc. Plus, with over a year of editing experience behind me now, I have a LOT of information I can dish out to help other writers who are experiencing some of the most common problems.

Here's a link to my newest article:

Dialogue

The few, the proud, the marine mammals

The Navy is once again mulling the idea of using specially trained dolphins and sea lions for military use. Yes, that’s right: the Navy is recruiting Flipper to patrol our coastal waters. The location would be a military base in the state of Washington, near Seattle, and more than a dozen California sea lions and Bottlenose Dolphins could be recruited for the effort, according to the Associated Press.

I know what you’re thinking right now: “But how will they hold a gun? Would it be some sort of weapon specially designed for a flipper, or are we talking head mounted lasers here?” The answer, of course is that these particular Navy recruits wouldn’t be foot soldiers, so to speak, but rather intelligence gatherers. Because of their sonar abilities, the dolphins would be used to locate rogue swimmers and divers, who would then be picked up by a human team for questioning and eventually—given the Bush Administration’s track record—extradited to Syria to be tortured.

The sea lions have a much bolder mission. According to the Associated Press and the U.S. Navy, sea lions would be trained to clamp a cuff around suspicious swimmers’ legs so they can be reeled into custody. If you’ve ever been to a zoo and seen these magnificent creatures in action, it’s not too hard to picture them in an espionage role—after all, if you can train them to balance a beach ball on their noses, then why not take it up a notch and add tactical surveillance to the list?

After reading the reports, I was somewhat skeptical that these types of military roles could be achieved by our underwater friends, so I went ahead and did a little research. Sure enough, sea lions and dolphins are used in a variety of missions in the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, including a number of mine removal operations during the first Iraq war and in a number of areas since then. All of this is according to the Navy, of course, and we’ll have to take their word for it since … well, let’s just say dolphins are pretty tight-lipped about their military roles.

But what marine mammals are used for most in the NMMP is to detect unauthorized swimmers, which is what their mission will mainly consist of off the coast of Washington. This raises two very important questions:

Who exactly is attempting to breach our nation’s borders by swimming to shore? Al-Qaeda? Russia? China? Can you really picture a Chinese operative telling his superior, “Hey, don’t worry about giving me a passport and plane ticket. I’ve got a way better idea … do we have any flippers?”
How devoted are these marine mammal soldiers to our country? We’re talking about dolphins here. What the hell do they care if someone sneaks by? How much are they putting into these patrols, in terms of effort? 110 percent? They’re not working for combat pay or Purple Hearts or even generals’ stars—they’re working for fish. Salty, tasty little fish, a school of which might just swim right past one of these marines during a patrol mission. What then?

Obviously, the animal rights community has been fighting this program for years, due to the obvious nature of the NMMP itself. What worries me more than the cruelty to the animals is the very threat of escalation it presents. If we continue with our marine mammal program, what will happen next? I’ll tell you exactly what happens: Complete Animal Warfare.

China will begin developing an Albatross Surveillance Program. These large, unassuming birds will patrol Eurasia and gather intelligence to spread Communism.

Italy and Greece will capture all of the stray dogs running around and release them after each one is equipped with a powerful audio recording device, sending them to every country except China (because, hey, we’ve all seen pictures of Chinese people eating dogs).

In an attempt to prevent any intelligence gathering, the European Union will intentionally spread bird flu in order to “ground” the albatross after the EU’s own counter-intelligence program breeding super rats (a natural enemy to the albatross) fails and results in a New Black Death.

And where will it end? Camels with mounted artillery? Or perhaps the Army could reinstate war elephants? He-Man had a tiger that was pretty tough … maybe the Marines could develop a similar program. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to operate in Asia due to the high number of poachers.

Perhaps war should be left to those who do it best: human beings. Or perhaps we should take a hint from our marine mammal friends and recognize the fact that we all share the same ecosystem. Co-existence is, after all, the only guarantee for survival.

Who is Scooter Libby?

Scandal. Lies. Corruption. And it goes all the way to the top. Sounds like a great story, doesn't it? What can you do to make it original? How about digging into the Scooter Libby trial a little bit? There's a lot of meat inside this dead animal, and a lot of ideas for stories. And sometimes, the real world is more frightening than any fictional story we could come up with.

What happened with Valerie Plame was outed? Was she covert? That's debatable. However, there WAS a time when she was Black Ops, and she was working with other Black Ops agents overseas under the cover of a fictional business. What happened to the people associated with her who were still overseas when that jackass Novak outed her? How can we possibly know if those people are Black Ops? The government denies their existence one way or another.

It would make a great story.

Magazine Update

Some new fiction is being added to Brew City Magazine this week ... plus I'm going to add some new info to the Editor's Corner and try to update the Milwaukee section a little more often. I would very much like to dip into the happenings of Milwaukee a little more, political and otherwise.

One of the hardest parts of editing a magazine is dispensing the rejection letters. I personally write each one, despite some of them sounding alike, and I prefer to offer any advice I can when time allows. Presently, time is NOT allowing any such idea, and so I have to pick and choose who to respond to until things here slow down.

More ideas

I've been doing a lot of work on my own site (KenBrosky.com) in addition to putting together a new issue of Brew City Magazine. On my site, I'm in the process of putting up all of my short stories, arranged according to various genres or themes. For instance, "Horror" will all be a part of one section, and will include future short stories. But then there are the stories that are connected to one another, like "Leaving Dodge County," which will be considered one more section. It also breaks up the text and makes it easier on the eyes.

But I won't stop submitting my various stories to magazines. Most magazines don't take any e-rights and so after the magazine is published you can usually get all of the rights back anyway. Otherwise, you can ask for them at a later date. I really am not all that interested in having people pay to read any single short story, especially not with such competition in today's world.

One final Sunday note, while we're on the topic: here's a link to the Minnetonka Review.

Writers Market

For a good weekend, thread, I thought it might be a good idea to mention that Writers Market is a great online source of information for people looking to get published just about anywhere. If you join them, you can also get access to a number of great articles about writing. There's an option to join on a monthly rate of about $3 or so, and you can print off anything from the site. See what I'm saying here? If you plan on submitting to the same magazines and publishers over and over ... well, why not just buy a month of access and print off everything you need to get?

Eh? Eh?

Broken Car, WTF

While cleaning one of my bookshelves today, I came across an old collection of short stories by Raymond Carver and re-read a few. Raymon Carver is a good teacher for writers who are looking to create stories that may not necessarily be "Fantastic," so to speak. He wrote very down-to-earth stories, much in the same way Chekov did. And I would recommend reading Anton Chekov as much as possible. He was literally the master of short stories--he could take the most routine story and make it a must-read.