Review: The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley

Author D. M. Pulley once discovered a cache of unopened, unclaimed safety deposit boxes in a building she visited as a structural engineer.  She wondered why the boxes went unclaimed, and what secrets or objects could be found within them.  This fascination drove her to write The Dead Key, her first novel.

The Dead Key centers on a bank in Cleveland, Ohio.  Told in two threads, one set in 1978 a few weeks before the bank mysteriously closed in the middle of the night, and the other thread in 1998 when engineers are considering repurposing the old bank building for office space.

Fascinated by the vault filled with unclaimed safe deposit boxes, a young structural engineer begins snooping around the building as she goes about her work creating a set of blueprints for it.  As she does so, she begins to uncover some of the reasons the bank closed mysteriously in 1978.

As we follow the young engineer's informal investigation, we also see things from the perspective of some bank employees in 1978.  It appears that the owners and managers of the bank were engaged in plenty of skulduggery and political intrigue.

It's no surprise that Pulley won a 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for The Dead Key.  It's an engaging story, well told.  Pulley reveals the old bank's secrets slowly and carefully, using the events in one time period to inform readers of things it's helpful to know in the other.

Readers of The Dead Key will understand what I mean when I say that I'll never be able to look at a dead fly without remembering a scene in this book.

I hope my first published novel is as well-done as this one, and I look forward to Pulley's next work.

If you like a good mystery or thriller, you'll enjoy The Dead Key.

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What I Read in 2014

It's important for any writer to also be an active reader.  Reading helps to keep our minds active and fills them with new ideas and information which can inform our writing.  For those who write, it exposes us to new ways of expressing ideas and imparting information to readers.

Below are the books I read in 2014 (minus anything I happen to finish in the next 8 days):

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
  
  This book discusses comics as an art form, communication medium, etc.  You'll learn how using the comic form can enhance storytelling.
• The Quest for the Golden Quill by C.B. Hampton
  
  In this book, author C. B. Hampton tells you about his quest to figure out what makes for a great story.
• Die Empty by Todd Henry (and I even met the author)
  
  I really enjoyed this book, and found it incredibly thought-provoking.  The book can help you figure out what's important to you (even if you're not sure yourself), how to incorporate more of that into your life, and make your life better.
• The Secret Life of Pronouns by James W. Pennebak
  
  This is another that takes a lot of effort to chew through.  Pennebak has done a tremendous amount of research around our word choices and what they say about us.  One of the things he's learned is that it's those words we tend to ignore in our speech and writing (e.g., the pronouns in the title) that say the most.
• It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
  
  I liked the title.  The advice in the book is more geared to advertising creators than to the rest of us, but there are still some good chunks of wisdom in it.
• Damn Good Advice (for people with talent!) by George Lois
  
  Another book dedicated to advertising creators more than the rest of us, though there is some interesting advice in it.
• Synchrodestiny by Deepak Chopra
  
  I've long held the belief that the coincidences in our lives tell us when we're "on the right path" toward our destiny.  The more coincidences that line up in front of us, the closer we are to where we should be.  In this book, Chopra shares essentially this same idea as part of Indian philosophy and provides exercises for recognizing and increasing these coincidences (synchronizing you with your destiny).
• The Kick-Ass Writer by Chuck Wendig
  
  Author Chuck Wendig offers hundreds of tips in this book for improving the stories you write.  His style will either immediately offend you (if colorful language bothers you) or draw you in with its honest, pull-no-punches humorous approach.
• Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell
  
  I'm still trying to understand exactly WHAT my process for brainstorming and writing a novel most effectively seems to be. James Scott Bell dispenses some good advice here on focusing in the middle of the story, on the main conflict, then branching out to the beginning and end from that point.
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
  
  This book makes a good case for why our country's seeming obsession with extroversion is a bad thing, and on the good that comes from having introverts in our society (working both behind the scenes and in positions of power).
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  This talks about how the seemingly "fringe" or "outlying" people are often in the best positions to achieve incredible success.
• The First 20 Hours... How to Learn Anything Fast! By Josh Kaufman
  
  Much has been made of the "10,000 hour rule" that claims you will never master any skill unless you put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.  Kaufman's assertion is that while it might take 10,000 hours to become a world-renowned pianist (or any other skill's master), it takes far less to be able to perform a skill competently or achieve a level of mastery that meets your specific needs.  I've been trying to figure out how to apply this to fiction writing.
• Write to the Point by Algis Budrys
  
  This incredibly hard to find book talks about how to master the basics of writing fiction that sells.  At a very simplified level, Budrys tells you that you need a character, in a context, with a problem, who makes attempts to solve the problem, encounters unexpected failure, and eventually achieves some kind of victory.  He also talks about agents, manuscript formats, developing good habits, etc.
• Cat Daddy by Jackson Galaxy
  
  The star of the "My Cat From Hell" television series tells the story of his struggles with addiction and finding his calling in live, while also telling the story of a very challenging cat that he adopted.  If you have any fondness for cats, you'll have a tear in your eye at the end of this book.
• From 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron
  
  Aaron talks about the techniques and strategies she used to be come a much more prolific writer.
• The Good Psychopath's Guide to Success by Kevin Dutton and Andy McNab
  
  When most of us think about psychopaths, we imagine serial killers and murderers.  While some psychopaths do end up that way, there are many others who use their lack of empathy to achieve considerable success in business, government, and elsewhere.  This book talks about how you can develop the "good" qualities of a successful psychopath without developing the darker and less-desirable ones.
• Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler
  
  Comedian Chelsea Handler talks about a trip she and several friends made to Africa.  Filled with the occasional laugh, you quickly get the idea that you may never want to travel with Chelsea anywhere - unless they have a well-stocked bar.
• Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain
  
  A great book for understanding characters.  Swain talks about what makes a sympathetic character, how to challenge the character, how a writer can create a character that the writer feels compelled to write about, and the basic components each character should embody.
• Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
  
  Another good book from Swain on developing stories and focusing your efforts on techniques that will build your career and improve your stories.
• This is What Success Looks Like by Bryan Zimmerman
  
  Internet marketing expert Bryan Zimmerman talks about what made him a success and how you can emulate what he did to be a success yourself.
• Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione
  
  Although this book is about coming up with unusual beers (like the many unusual brews from Dogfish Head - Calagione's own brewery), it starts with a great tutorial on how to brew a simple brown ale.   It then shares more advanced techniques and a bunch of interesting recipes for homebrewed beer.
• She Sat He Stood: What Do Your Characters Do While They Talk? by Ginger Hanson
  
  The "White Room" problem has been the biggest issue in the writing I've done for National Novel Writing Month each year. This book is designed to help you overcome the problem, by explaining how to use scene, props, body language, and more to make your scenes come to life.
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  
  This book talks about what makes an idea stick in the minds of those who encounter it, and how to construct your own messages so that they "stick" too.
• Vendetta for the Saint by Leslie Charteris/Harry Harrison
  
  A long-time fan of author Harry Harrison, I was surprised to learn that he had ghost-written this novel many years ago for Leslie Charteris.  As I read it, I could see some of Harrison's signature style come through - and perhaps the inspiration for his Stainless Steel Rat character.
• Clone Brews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Commercial Beers by Tess and Mark Szamatulski
  
  This book talks about how to develop a recipe that approximates or duplicates the recipe of a famous commercial beer.  It also shares 200 such recipes, developed and tested by the authors, along with food pairings for each.  I'm currently brewing a Gulden Draak clone from the recipe in the book and hope to soon brew a Scaldis Noel clone from it.
• The Ultimate Fiction Thesaurus - A Writing Study and The Ultimate Fiction Thesaurus II by Sam Stone
  
  These books, despite their titles, are about building your own thesaurus of ways to describe how characters look, how they act, how they dress, etc.  The author provides a list of examples for things like showing a character's age, and then encourages the reader through exercises to expand those lists themselves.
• Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard and Daniel Goldman
  
  Author Matthieu Ricard shares a combination of Buddhist beliefs, philosophies, and mental exercises to improve the reader's happiness.  Although filled with what seems to be good advice, it's a bit hard to read.  The author has a habit to write in very, very long sentences.

Disclosure: All the links above are Amazon Affiliate links, meaning that I receive a small commission for any Amazon purchases you make after following the link.  If this bothers you, open the Amazon site in your browser and search for the titles to avoid that.

As I look over this list, I see that I need to spend some more time reading fiction in the coming year.  The combination of both reading and writing fiction is said to be the best way to improve writing skill.  Most of my reading this year has been non-fiction.  We'll have to see what I can manage in 2015.

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A.P.E. by Guy Kawasaki

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Apple and Macintosh bigot.  If Apple made the product, I was convinced that it had to be better than anything else out there.  Guy Kawasaki was Apple's "Chief Evangelist" responsible for spreading the word about Apple's products, so he was someone I grew to like and respect.  Although I'm no longer the Apple bigot I was in those days (I primarily use Windows and Android, though I do own an iPad), I still think Guy is pretty cool and still listen to what he has to say.  When I learned that he had put out a book on self-publishing, I had to read it.

A.P.E. stands for "Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur" and represents what any self-published author should consider himself or herself to be.  As the author, you're responsible for writing and revising the book.  As the publisher, you've got to concern yourself with hiring good editors, acquiring cover art, and designing the book's interior.  As the Entrepreneur, it's your job to make sure that you earn a profit from all your hard work. With Guy's help, that should be a lot easier.

The book covers almost everything you'd need to know to publish any kind of book.  It talks about whether you should even bother to write the book in the first place.  How do you finance the book?  How do you get it?  How should you write it?  How do you avoid making the finished product look amateurish?  How do you sell and market the book when you're finished?  How do you format the book for publication?  How do you decide on a price?  It even talks about the tools you should use to produce the book.  (Not surprisingly, Guy recommends an Apple MacBook Air.  He also recommends Microsoft Word, Dropbox, Evernote, and Adobe InDesign.)

A section on how to format the text for the widest possible compatibility across eBook readers, starting at Microsoft Word and ending with Adobe InDesign is extremely useful.  He also covers how to convert the file for each eBook service, and how to upload it to them.

The book provides links throughout the text to many useful resources, including recommended writing/editing/publishing books, crowd funding sources, sites where you can find contractors to help, where to get a good cover, etc.  Some of these are affiliate links, providing another way you can monetize an eBook.

The final section talks about how this book itself was created.  They used MacBook Airs and iMacs with Microsoft Word to write it, with Dropbox to maintain backups and share versions of the book.  Adobe InDesign CS6 was used to design and produce the Kindle, ePub, and print-ready PDF files.  They hired an independent artist to do the cover.  Editing was crowdsourced to Google+ and Facebook.  A professional copyeditor took care of the final editing.  To promote it, they relied on blog reviews, NetGalley (a service that emails bloggers and journalists), asked readers for Amazon reviews, used social media, hired a PR firm, did press interviews, held a few live online events, and set up a Google+ community.

I've been studying eBook publishing for a few years now.  I've had the opportunity to learn from several authors who have made a living at self-publishing from back in the earliest days of eBook (before the Kindle).  They have taught me a great deal, but I learned more from reading Guy Kawasaki's book than I've learned from all of them, to date, combined.

If you're thinking about self-publishing a book through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc., the $9.99 you pay for this book will be money well-spent.  You'll get good tips about every step of the process from writing through to promoting and publishing.  I strongly recommend it!

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The Art of Explanation

A few months back, I sat down and read The Art of Explanation – Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand by Lee LeFever.  It's a fairly quick read, but chock full of good information about how to explain complex concepts to an audience.

LeFever recommends envisioning your topic and audience on an A-to-Z scale where A means the audience knows little or nothing, and Z means they know at least as much as you do about it.  Your goal is to move someone from A to Z.

You do this by going through several stages, more or less in this order:

• Agreement:  Set the stage by explaining that you know where the reader is coming from. If you were explaining the "Fastpass" toll-paying device, you'd start by explaining how it's a pain to wait in line at tollbooths, find the exact change, and wait for the gate to go up.  Most readers who would care about the device will likely agree with you.  That's what you're trying to accomplish at this stage – agreement.


• Context:  Once you've established agreement, you set the context of what you're about to explain.  In the Fastpass example, you'd say something about how nice it would be to avoid all the waiting and hassle, and to just pay your tolls once a month and be done with it.  Now your audience understands the problem, agrees with you, and sees that you've got a solution coming.


• Story:  Here, you use real-world (or plausible fictional) stories showing how someone experienced a problem that caused them some kind of "pain" (in the literal or figurative sense).  Then show how what you're explaining here solved that pain, and how the person is better off now.  Stories don't work well for process explanations, or when you have time constraints, or across cultures (in some cases).


• Connections:  There are two ways you can connect the concept you're explaining with something the reader already knows.  One is an analogy, saying "It's like fishing".  The other connects the old idea to the new one, such as comparing postal mail to email.  Here the point is to connect the new topic you're explaining to something similar the audience already understands.  In the Fastpass example, you might compare it to a credit card, and compare the toolbooths to the card reader at the checkout.  As you go through the Fastpass tollbooth, you're swiping your credit card and paying the toll.  This connects something the audience doesn't know (the Fastpass) to something they do (credit cards and card machines).


• Description:  By the time you've gotten the audience to this point, they're ready to learn more about the idea you're there to explain.  In the above stages, you're explaining why there is a problem and why the topic you're discussing is a good solution to that problem.  Now, you're going to give them the gist of how the solution works.


• Conclusion:  This is basically a short re-cap of all the above stages, to help reinforce the learning in the reader's mind.

When you're trying to simplify a complex topic, you should consider these points:

• Ask yourself "What is the 'big idea' I'm trying to convey?" and "What are the key points the audience needs to know about it?"


• Don't make assumptions about what the audience knows


• Use the most basic language possible to convey the idea


• Zoom out to the broadest perspective possible


• Forget the details and exceptions, and focus on the "big idea"


• Trade accuracy for understanding and clarity


• Connect the basic ideas to things the audience already knows

When it comes to illustrations, LeFever suggests determining the kind of question you're answering with the visual, then choose the right kind of graphic to convey the answer.  For example:

• Who and What?  Show portraits or images to let the audience see the person or thing.


• How much?  Show a bar chart or other numeric graph that illustrates the numbers


• When?  Show a timeline with the order of events


• Where?  Show a map or diagram that shows where something is, or where it fits into the overall scheme


• How?  A flowchart or similar diagram


• Why?  An x/y scatter plot of the relevant data

There's a lot more to the book than I'm covering here.  If you've found this brief description useful, you'll probably get a lot more from the actual book.

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Plotting–A Novelist's Workout Guide

Aaron Allston is a New York Times bestselling author and someone I’ve had the good fortune to meet and learn from.  I jumped at the opportunity to be an advance reader for Plotting – A Novelist’s Workout Guide before its publication, and have been re-reading it since its release.

The book begins with a section on theory, covering the definition of a scene, a discussion of where scenes come from, how ideas and characters interact to create a scene, and a section of exercises for creating scenes.  He talks about messages, themes, character arcs, and more.  Near the end of the book, he covers outlining methods and ways you can find and fix plotting mistakes.  A series of checklists at the end make it easy to apply what you've read.  The material is all useful and good.

For me, the stand-out part of the book is the example woven through the text.  Early in the book, Allston discusses research he did into ancient vampire lore.  The vampires in these stories were smelly, disgusting undead monsters who preyed on their own families – a far cry from the "sparkly vampire" stories of today.  In Plotting, Allston starts with this vague notion of a human-like monster preying on family members.  As the book progresses, he walks you through how he would develop this concept into a complete story.  He talks about the characters he'd need to tell the story, and why he needs them.  He discusses the various scenes that such a story would need to be believable and interesting.  By the time you reach the end of the book, you have a complete outline from which you could write a compelling story.

Reading this book was like being able to peek over Allston's shoulder as he writes, watching the wheels turn in his mind as he works on this sample story idea.  It's a rare glimpse into the process of plotting a story from beginning to end, as it's done by a successful, bestselling fiction author.  Watching Allston work on this story, I began to see why so many of my own attempts have fallen flat and just how much I still have to learn.

If you're just starting out and trying to answer the question, "Just how does a professional author get from idea to finished novel?" then this is the book you're looking for.

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Steal Like An Artist

Earlier today, I finished reading Austin Kleon's book Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative.  I recommend it for anyone considering undertaking a creative endeavor such as writing, painting, drawing, or music.

It's a quick and easy read.  Kleon's writing style is very conversational and pleasant.  He doesn't talk down to the reader or get preachy.  He simply delivers the material he's there to present and moves on.  Along the way, he shares a number of his artworks and many inspirational quotes to support what he covers in the text.

According to the book, "The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something 'original,' nine times out of ten they just don't know the references or the original sources involved.  What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before.  Nothing is completely original… If we're free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it."

I took several things away from the book, including:

• Copy your heroes, the people who inspired you, or the ones you want to be.  Don't just steal from one of them, steal from all of them.  "If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it's research."


• What should you copy?  Don't steal the style. Steal the thinking behind it.  You don't want to "look like" your heroes, you want to see the world like they do – to internalize their way of looking at the world. If you just mimic it without understanding where they're coming from, you'll only be a knockoff.


• Our failure to become our perceived ideal is what defines us and makes us unique.


• All fiction is fan fiction.  The best advice is not to write what you know, but to write what you like.  Write the kind of story you like best, the kind you want to read.  When you're at a loss, ask "What would make a better story?"


• Think about your favorite work from your creative heroes.  Ask yourself:  What did they miss? What didn't they make? What could have been made better? If they were still alive, what would they be making today? If all your favorites got together and collaborated, what would they make with you leading them?


• Find a way to bring your body (arms, legs, etc.) into the work.  Physical motion kickstarts the brain.


• Take time to mess around, to get lost, and to wander.  You never know where it will lead you.


• It's important to have a hobby, something creative that's just for you.  You don't try to make money or get famous from it, you do it just to be happy.  It's something that gives but doesn't take from you.


• You want attention only after you're doing really good work.


• There are no shortcuts. Know you're going to suck for a while. Fail. Get better.


• The secret of Internet success… Step 1: Wonder at something.  Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you.


• Think about what you have to share that could be of some value to people and share it online.


• Surround yourself with books and objects you love.  Create your own world.


• Travel makes the world look new and our brains work harder.


• You have to find a place that feeds you creatively, socially, spiritually, and literally.  The food should be good.


• If you ever find that you're the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.


• Write public fan letters.  Your hero may or may not see them. The important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting something in return.


• Keep a "praise file" of the nice messages you get about your work.  When you're feeling down, look at it.


• Get a wall calendar that shows you the whole year. Then break your work into daily chunks. When you finish a chunk, make a big X in that day's box.  After a while, you'll have a chain of boxes.  Your only job is not to break the chain.


• Keep a log book. Ask yourself each day "What's the best thing that happened today?"


• The way to get over a creative block is to place some constraints on yourself.  Limitations mean freedom in creative work.


• It's often what an artist leaves out that makes art interesting.

The book came along at a good time for me.  I have recently started brainstorming a science-fiction universe which draws ideas from a variety of sources.  If you looked at many of these individually, you might recognize them as coming from this book, that movie, or a particular television series.  Combined, however, they create a universe that would be hard to recognize as any one of those influences.  I'm hopeful that when this universe is complete (or "complete enough") that it will be a setting for a series of short stories and novels.  Those stories will definitely not be a retelling of the original source material, but something new.  This book helped inspire my confidence to keep visualizing that fictional universe in spite of the fact that I'm "stealing" bits of it from writers whose work inspired me.

I highly recommend this book.  It would make a great gift to a friend, loved one, or family member who is writing, sculpting, painting, playing music, etc.  It will encourage them to explore their influences, and to expand on the things that make those works great.  The relatively low price of the book makes it an inexpensive gift as well.

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Review: Be The Monkey by Konrath and Eisler

This book is essentially a transcript of a discussion between professional authors J.A. (Joe) Konrath and Barry Eisler.

Konrath has been self-publishing for several years and has made a very good living at it.  I think he would probably argue that he makes more self-publishing digital books than he would be earning through legacy publishers.  Eisler is known for turning down a $500,000 advance because he believed he could earn more money by self-publishing the same book.

The value of the book is in the advice and information it shares.  There is some entertainment value as well, in that the authors both have some amusing and funny things to day.  My biggest complaint with the book is that it felt like Eisler and Konrath complimented each other every few pages through the book.
They make it clear that legacy publishing is facing a number of challenges, most of its own making.  They are trying to prop up the sales of printed books by keeping eBook prices artificially high, and refusing to release the eBook until the paper book is ready to ship.  They've been reducing author royalties, taking longer to pay the authors, and pushing more of their costs on to agents (e.g., editing and cover art).  Titles don't stay on store shelves long, and not all books get equal treatment at the retail level.

By comparison, authors who self-publish through Amazon.com fare much better.  They collect 70% royalties on each sale (instead of royalties in the 15% range from legacy publishers), and receive payment each quarter (versus semi-annually or longer for legacy publishers).  They have control over the content of their books, choose their own cover art, etc.

Another advantage of eBooks is that they remain on the virtual store shelves "forever".  Brick and mortar bookstores can usually only stock what is selling well right now, and few can afford to keep many older titles on their shelves.  With eBooks and retailers like Amazon, all of an author's works can remain for sale on the "shelf" indefinitely.  When a reader discovers one of an author's books, there is a good chance they will purchase others from the author's backlist of titles.

An argument often made for legacy publishing is that book publishers serve as "gatekeepers" for readers, separating the good books from the bad and ensuring the quality of the books they publish.  The argument says that self-publishing will lead to a flood of crappy, poorly written books, and that all authors will suffer.  Readers, Konrath and Eisler argue, are good gatekeepers.  They can separate the wheat from the chaff, and help others do the same through reviews, lists, recommendations, and word of mouth.  This is the same way people help each other find the "good" videos on YouTube. 
Konrath argues that legacy publishers haven't been very good at separating successful from unsuccessful books.  One of his titles that the major publishers in New York rejected 12 years earlier went on to become a #15 bestseller on Amazon and earn him $17,500 in just 12 days.  And because it's still on the virtual shelves there, it's continuing to earn him money today.

The authors make it clear that although they are confident that digital books will outsell paper books (if they aren't doing so already), they do not believe that paper books will ever go away.  Apple iPods and MP3s didn't eliminate the CD. The CD didn't eliminate cassettes.  Cassettes didn't eliminate vinyl.  You can still find music being produced today in all those formats (except maybe cassette?), just as you'll have no problem finding paper books 10 or 20 years from now. 

Konrath and Eisler say that self-publishing of eBooks isn't about bringing an end to the paper book.  It's about authors taking advantage of a new technology and distribution system that enables them to make higher royalties and reach readers without going through publishers.  It's worked out well for them.  Konrath reported making $102,000 in the month of March 2013 alone – most from older legacy-published titles no longer in print.

Be The Monkey is an entertaining read overall, though it is a bit annoying how often Konrath and Eisler compliment one another.  For 99 cents, though, it's hard to find much fault with it.

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9 Ways To Get More from Your Kindle Fire

1. Consider Amazon Prime Membership:  The Amazon Prime membership program offers free two-day shipping for all products sold by Amazon.com (but NOT products sold through Amazon by third parties), free instant streaming of many movies and television shows, and access to the Kindle Owner Lending Library which allows you to check out one book free per month from a fairly large list.Prime membership isn't cheap, costing $79 per year.  However, if you order items regularly from Amazon, the free two-day shipping on purchases (of any dollar amount) can add up quickly.  I often find that once Prime covers my shipping, I can order many items from Amazon more cheaply than I can buy them locally.The selection of videos available for free streaming through Prime may not be quite as good as Netflix, but it's impressive.  For example, you can stream a wide variety of TV shows, including Arrested Development, 24, Lost, Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Dora the Explorer, Cheers, Firefly, Doctor Who, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and more.  Available movies include Mrs. Doubtfire, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Caddyshack, Office Space, and many more.In the Kindle Owners' Lending Library you'll find books my Suzanne Collins, Debbie Macomber, Richard Dawkins, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Stephen R. Covey, and many more.  If you are purchasing at least one regular-priced Kindle book ($8 or more) per month, this would probably pay your Prime subscription. (Assuming of course that you can find a book in the library each month that you want to read.)


2. Check Out Project Gutenberg:  The Project Gutenberg sitetouts itself as the first producer of free ebooks.  It's certainly been around longer than the original Kindle, so I'm not going to question their claim.The electronic books on the site are all public domain books, which no longer have valid copyrights.  You can download any book on the site at no charge and load it onto your Kindle Fire to read.  The site offers free classic books like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Agatha Christie's Secret Adversary, and many more.If you're not sure how to load these free eBooks on your Kindle Fire, see the next tip.


3. Download and Use the Calibre eBook Management Software: Calibre is a free application available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.  It can help you manage a library of electronic books, convert electronic books from one format to another, download news from the web and convert it into an eBook on your Kindle Fire, and browse your eBooks on your computer.Using Calibre with the Kindle Fire is easy.  Unlock the Kindle Fire.  Connect a micro USB cable to the computer and the Kindle Fire.  Launch Calibre.  It will automatically identify the Kindle Fire. The eBooks you have already downloaded and imported into Calibre's library can be loaded onto your Kindle Fire by selecting the book and clicking the "Send to Device" button.  Calibre will load the book onto the Kindle.  Tap the Disconnect button on the Kindle Fire screen, unplug the cable, and the book should appear in your Kindle Fire device library.  Calibre will take care of converting the book to the proper format and putting it where it needs to go on the Kindle.


4. Keep an Eye on eReaderiQ for free and discounted eBooks.The eReaderiQ site monitors Amazon for free Kindle books and big price drops.  It provides a list of the available free Kindle books and provides direct links for downloading them.  The books you select can be directly loaded onto your Kindle by Amazon.


5. Monitor the Kindle Daily Deal for Inexpensive eBooks.Amazon offers the Kindle Daily Deal each day.  This is a Kindle book that is priced for one day only at a significant discount, usually reduced to $0.99 or $1.99 instead of a price of $7 or more.  On the day I'm writing this, the Daily Deal is Lawrence Block's Not Comin' Home to You novel which is normally $7.69 but available today for $0.99.


6. Get More Free Books Through HundredZeros.comThe site HundredZeros.com provides a list of free Kindle books as well.


7. Check Your Local Library for eBook Lending Options:  My local library has access to a wide selection of eBooks, audio books, and other materials I can download to my Kindle Fire free of charge.  Yours may have a similar arrangement.


8. Try FreeTechBooks.com for legally free books, textbooks, and lecture notes:  The site FreeTechBooks.com offers a large number of free and legally downloadable books, textbooks, and lecture notes on a variety of subjects.  Available eBooks cover computer science, algorithms, data structures, object oriented programming, artificial intelligence, parallel computing, operating systems, and software engineering.


9. Check out the Free App of the Day in the Kindle App Store:  Each day, Amazon offers an application for the Kindle Fire free of charge.  To get to the App of the Day, turn on and unlock your Kindle Fire (while connected to Wi-Fi).  Tap the Home button if you aren't already at the home screen.  Tap the "Apps" link at the top of the home screen, then the "Store" link.  At the top of the screen you'll see an app listed, with its normal price displayed and crossed out, and a button to obtain it free of charge.  If you have an Android phone or tablet, installing the Amazon App Store application on that device will allow you to get the same app for free there as well.

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Review: Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver

Jerry Cleaver is the creator of Chicago's most successful writers' workshop, the Writers' Loft, and has been teaching writing for many years.  His Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course is an inexpensive, portable version of what he teaches on his Immediate Fiction web site.  In fact, this book is part of what that $2,000+ course gives you.

Cleaver explains that the need to hear and share stories is one of the deepest human social needs.  We'll even tell stories that put our safety and freedom at risk (such as when bank robbers can't resist sharing tales of their exploits which eventually get them arrested).  A "story" in this sense is defined as a narrative that contains conflict, action, and resolution.  Conflict occurs when a character or characters in a story want something, but there is an obstacle in their way.  To get what they want, characters must take action.  The action they take reveals something about them.  In the end, they'll get what they're after or fail (which is "resolution").  In fact, Cleaver says that "if the characters are having a good time, the reader is not.  If it's going well, it's going nowhere."

Fixing a Story That's Not Working
When you're looking at a scene or story that just isn't working, you should ask yourself these questions and make sure you have the answers:

• Who wants what?
• What's the obstacle?
• What's the character doing to overcome the obstacle?
• How does that turn out?

It's not necessarily one character in a scene who wants something.  If characters have opposing "wants", it can lead to a more interesting story.  For example, a detective in a mystery may want clues from a witness that would help unravel the case.  The witness may want to tell the detective what he saw, but fears doing so because it would expose an affair he was having.  While these two characters are verbally "battling" in the story, the reader learns more about both of them.  Revealing character, according to Cleaver, is the writer's primary purpose at all times.

Other Tidbits from Immediate Fiction
Some other interesting points made in the book:

• Cleaver encourages writers to think about emotion as they write.  Writers are encouraged to "look for all the emotions that the character could possibly be feeling at one time.  If he could be feeling it, he should be feeling it."
• Remember that no matter how strangely a character or person is behaving, what they're doing makes perfect sense to them and would make sense to you if you understood how they see the world.  The key is to understand what would make you act that way and reflect that in the character.
• Readers experience a story through the characters, and share the experience the character is having.
• If you have exposition to share with the reader, spread it out across the scene rather than doing a "dreaded info dump".
• When you're trying to decide what a character will do in a situation, ask yourself what is more dramatic and what will reveal more character, and do that.
• Pretty much every writer's first draft of a novel is bad.  The successful novelist is the one who sticks with that bad novel and keeps polishing it until it's good.

Cleaver's description of the writer's subconscious is excellent:  "It's like having a trusted friend who helps you with everything, whom you must depend on to get anything done, but who every so often without warning and for no reason decides to clobber you."  When you're on a roll, the subconscious is helping you keep in the flow.  But sometimes it pops up and tells you that your writing is awful, that you should quit, etc.

In addition to advice on writing fiction, Cleaver also covers overcoming writer's block, the difference between scriptwriting and fiction writing, and marketing your work.

As you read through the book, the constant reminders to refer back to want, action, obstacle, resolution, and emotion feel incredibly redundant.  But these are important concepts Cleaver is trying to pound into the reader's brain.  It's written in a very conversational style, and manages to be both informative and fun to read.

In my opinion, this book should be on every fiction writer's bookshelf.  It's one I refer to again and again.

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Review: The Writer’s Little Helper

James V. Smith, Jr.’s The Writer’s Little Helper is a great little reference book for writers.  It consists primarily of short (most under 4 pages) discussions of problems and situations that novelists face, along with easy to understand suggestions for getting past them.  It’s one of those books that you can sit down and read for hours if you have the time, or (owing to the brevity of the sections) just a few minutes.

In the section entitled “Imagery Versus Description”, Smith begins by saying “My advice: Never write description.  Description implies stopping the story to write colorful stuff.  Instead, create powerful imagery which suggests keeping the story in motion using those images to pump up the action, conflict, and dialogue.”  He then shows examples of how to do this, by weaving the description into the action, incorporating images into the action, seeing through the character’s eyes, using tiny but telling details, choosing action-bearing verbs and non-verbs, inventing fresh viewpoints, and creating an image without saying so.  He not only provides examples of how to do these things, but explains afterward how the technique was used in the example.

His suggestion in “How to Write a Bestseller” is an interesting one.  He tells you to take your favorite bestselling author’s novel, and copy it word-for-word by hand on paper.  Why?  Doing this, Smith says, can teach you simple mechanics like punctuating dialogue.  It can help you see more clearly how the author uses imagery, describes action, and writes dialogue.  You may even begin to see how “every word serves a purpose in a best-seller, carrying the freight without detours.  In short, you learn how not to waste your own time and words.”  Smith suggests taking notes as you copy, to jot down the lessons you learn from the author’s work. You should also stop periodically and try to write a similar scene yourself, using what you’ve learned.

The other sections of the book cover characterization, editing, beginnings and endings, point of view, word choice, dialogue, pacing, plot, writer’s block, and getting your work published.  Depending on where you are as a writer, you’ll find some topics more helpful than others.  You may find some to be completely useless, and others to be eye-openers.  Personally, I found most of the book to be filled with easily-digested, useful ideas and “things to ponder”. 

The Writer’s Little Helper would make a great gift for a friend who is thinking about writing a novel, or someone who’s struggling with some part of their story.  It’s also a great reference to flip through occasionally, just to remind yourself of techniques you’ve mastered and to get you to think about those you may not have mastered.  It’s also a relatively inexpensive book, which is a bit unusual for a modern hardcover.

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