Stop Censorship.

Take action .

Or forever hold your peace.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

I’m actually nominatable (nominable? Nomi-? Nom-? I am eligible) for several categories. I am asking – well begging – for votes in order to try to claim any of these areas.

The process is simple, well simple-ish. Click on the link, look for my name or the title for I Know Not, click the bubble, then at the bottom fill out your name and  email address. Once you hit the submit button, you will get an email confirmation. Click the link in the confirmation, and your vote is then cast (this last to prevent spamming).

I am overjoyed at the performance of I Know Not. I adore my fans. I love readers. But moving forward, I need some recognition from official channels, which will lead to more conventions, more interviews, exposure. It is one small part of my next step, and to take it I need the help of you, your friends, your mom, her coffee klatch, your school mates, my school mates, and so on.

The polls are open only for seven more days, and thank you for your support.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 23 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m not sure if I could give hope, that I would give hope, to be perfectly honest. It’s no longer ‘hip’, or ‘in’. Apparently anyone who doesn’t believe that fairly soon several dozen dystopias are going to have a wild Mortal Combat Style Armageddon all over the earth is just not living in reality. Most of those that espouse this belief are environmentalists, but several are survivalists, and even some fairly straightforward gun owners. I have found, however, that the further left – politically -  the orientation of those I’m talking to, the more I am treated as a hostile force for stating, in effect:

Have hope.

And I don’t mean that people get a little snippy because we disagree. I mean they start wagging a finger at me, continue by poking me in my chest with it, and end with them sticking it in my eye and screaming that I should apologize for getting my face in the way of his finger. I have been called an idiot, a racist, and a cynic. I get asked a lot of questions, a lot of them nonsensical. Others come down really to: yeah, who sez? Well, that’s the one I can deal with. You see, I know who says:

History.

Let me be completely honest: I do not believe in Anthropomorphic Global Warming. I believe it is a scam of the highest order meant to fleece people of money by the truckload. I do, however believe in acid rain and brown air. Neither is good, and we can take steps to curb these facets of modern life. I do believe there is sufficient reason for developments in technology and society to occur in order to solve these problems. History abounds with examples.

At the turn of the 20th century everyone was sure the primary mode of transport was going to end civilization. Hundreds of thousands of people were living in one place at one time in the largest cities the world had ever seen. Long ago, city planners had developed a plan for dealing with the… leavings… of their fellow humans, but then came the horses. Owned by more and more people, used for transport and mechanical power, each ate so much that people starved as the prices of foodstuffs were driven up as horses competed with families. Excrement lined the streets. How much? Wonder why homes built during that time have steps from the street up to the front door?

There were areas cleared, pits dug, and then filled and filled until they became mountains. Vermin were everywhere, rats and roaches and worse infecting, and biting and infesting. The city – all cities – smelled like being locked in a garbage truck with a herd of incontinent animals.

But just as everything seemed darkest, and it was certain that civilization had run into the brick wall of its own waistline, a miracle happened.

Actually that is another lie, and it shows an incredible lack of understanding. A guy comes along and invents the internal combustion engine. That’s right: The car ended an environmental catastrophe that threatened all of western civilization: The horse.

So, do you know: Nicolas Joseph Cugnot?
Remember in the 60′s when people were looking at massive earth overpopulation, that there was no way to fee d so many people? Has anyone read that India, Russia, and China needed food so badly, but America’s breadbasket could not sustain much more… Then there came ANFO, fertilizing the dwarf wheat that Norman Borlaug developed, allowing more efficient use of the soil. Populations continue to rise, and – if governments stop subsidizing and meddling in the markets, we can do it cheaply.

You know what makes me angry? You know what turns me into a towering inferno of rage? You know what makes me want to forge weapons made of my very own fangs and bile and hurl them into the faces of the pessimists that scream about Armageddon? This is history. It has happened. It is the pattern of human kind since the beginning.

Despite the fact that history says the hero we so desperately need is already here, already working, and we probably won’t remember his name or give him any credit once he does what he does, they have spent all this time trying to convince you that we stand on the edge of oblivion. And when you call them on it they sputter, and moan, and then they attack as viciously as any pack of scavengers.

Let me circle back around. I don’t believe that man created Global warming, but I don’t like pollution. The person working on the next generation of energy and transportation is almost done. I know this because history tells me so. Just like the stock market, where everyone is waiting for a crash like a bored spectator at a NASCAR rally: They trumpet the downs, but the trend is always upwards. Slow, steady, shaky from time to time, with downs to be sure, but human history always looks toward the point above the horizon.

I first said I wanted to give you hope. Then I admitted that this was a lie. Hope is internal. You must give you hope. You must nurture it. You must want it.

No matter how uncool hope is, it is history, it is the truth.

And everywhere I look, I am proved correct.

It stares into the darkness without fear.

And it speaks two words.

And those words could crack the gates of hell.

We know them. We’ve heard them. They are everywhere. They tend to be very loud, and not very shy, and very-very sure of themselves. I just wish they had some perspective.

You see, perspective is the trait that allows you to understand that, say, once you look at the whole globe, everyone that makes over $29,000 a year is part of the 1%. It also keeps you from being seen as a high handed blowhard that praises federal workers when the president is part of your party, and demonize them after the next election. But it also gives you the precious second needed to back away from saying something that will reveal you to be a rampaging moralist.

Anyone that has paid attention probably knows I’m not the President’s biggest fan.

Still, on Thanksgiving Day, Obama signed a bill legalizing the slaughter of horses in order to export the meat for human consumption.  Immediate outrage culminated with numerous articles from hand-wringing people thoughtlessly moralizing about “who would save the poor horses!”

And I have to sigh. And kick them. Twice. With the heaviest boots I can manage.

Madeline Bernstein is one such luminary that should be nudged very gently in the butt.

Look, Bernstein doesn’t want to eat horse meat. I don’t want to eat horse meat. Most of you out there probably have no intent or desire to ever eat horse meat. Some people, however, will. Now, let’s trace things back and square them with what we know.

We know horses are extremely expensive animals. Then you have the cost of breaking, training, room and board… Well, you’re talking about thousands to buy in and thousands more to keep.

Why are they expensive? Because they take forever to train, provide much less meat than a horse or a cow, and make much better workers doing other jobs than feeders being taken to the slaughter.

So, either there is a huge cannibal like cabal looking for taboo meat to feast upon, or people need cheap meat. Now for the final point. If you are a cheaty-cheat-cheater, you did what Bernstein did not and you thought ahead to the end of this point: Nobody is going to slaughter expensive animals. Yes, even if they are Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

There has always been a hierarchy to animals. I can’t remember what it is called now, but it comes down to: Some we have as pets, others we eat, others we exterminate.

But horses are beautiful, or not, and that is immaterial to the discussion. The important thing is they are expensive and less efficient than cows for meat. Even an ‘evil corporatist’ would want to raise cows for meat instead of horses, thus getting more return for the investment. So, it isn’t good vs. evil. What is it, then?

Historically, poor families are those that eat horse meat. Why? Because horses are only converted to food animals when they are overpopulated or when the cost to keep exceeds the cost to sell. The meat is sold as a means of recuperating costs of raising and feeding animals that would otherwise starve. It is not in demand. Thus the cost is low.

I have had pet rabbits and guinea pigs. Both have been raised specifically for food. Anyone attempting to  eat any of my pets would meet all the raging dragon-ninja-knight bladesmanship a 12 year old hyper-nerd could bring to bear (But that’s another blog.) But we are not talking about pets. We are talking about animals that can no longer be kept or fed. Starving horses die, as I understand it. Now, if the horses are slaughtered, and some poor people can eat, I do not have a problem with that. Sorry. Some poor kid in Mexico getting a full belly is more important to me than anyone who has internalized one too many episodes of Black Beauty.

The moralist lacks perspective. For that reason she is perfectly comfortable arguing that we must find some way to keep horses from slaughter, but gives no thoughts to feeding the poor. And the poor of Mexico or China eating horse meat may disgust you. But until you start sending food donations to them, I think they’d rather eat than impress someone in another country that they don’t know, that makes far more cash.

And the sad thing is not that there are poor in the world, or that animals – even cute ones – have meat. It is when there are poor people that must eat horse meat, a highly trained lawyer writes about animal cruelty instead of how to help the poor become more successful so they can buy and keep the unwanted horses.

Well, I have a few extra days off, and I’m spending them leading panels at the Regional Gathering for Cincinnati Area Mensa. If you are interested, I believe that Friday night is free for prospective members. Come to the Doubletree hotel, and meet card-carrying geniuses… and me.

It’s not wholly my fault. I am like a marathon runner that long ago smashed the runner’s wall, only to get knocked from his feet halfway through the race. I am battered and bloody, and something salty is dripping into my eyes and mouth. Every time I try to get up, something else trips over me and puts me back on the asphalt. This is my first, small attempt to get to my knees. Yes, my knees. Giggle if you want, but I am proud to kneel if it is on my way to standing again.

Not making much sense, am I? Told you that would happen.

Let me chain myself to reality for a few precious seconds and try again.

130-odd days ago I Know Not was released. As I announced, It sold an unprecedented (for me) 1,000 copies in 97 days.

A party was had, and my publisher (the precog) said: “And lo, you should-eth get-eth me-eth another fantasy novel soon! For as people purchase-eth and enjoy-eth, they shalt google-eth.”

Which, once I deleted the -eth’s, made perfect sense. I launched into a new novel: The Last Dragoon, with an idea of fast-tracking it into production. For a industry that normally works in years and centuries (at best) fast tracking means months.

I am still working a full schedule at the day job, but I kept myself to a fairly harsh word count requirement: 2,000 words a day. A little more than the average term paper, every day, rain or shine. That’s what I meant to do.

Well, in October, more news came in. IKN had tripled sales, selling 960 copies in 30 days. This would be a massive disappointment to Stephen King or Terry Pratchett, but to me it’s like hitting the lottery. I am hoping against hope the people who like the novel will tell friends and acquaintances about the book, and push more sales. I can’t do much to help that along (like blog consistently, for instance) because I am working full time at the day job and (say it with me) writing 2,000 words a night.

Odd things have come from it, though. I have posted my nightly word counts on Facebook as a kind of public service, extolling others to keep writing, and give hope to those faced with writer’s block. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about it, and I’m hopeful that the words are worth the announcements. That brings up an interesting… thingie.

National Write a Novel Month is November, every year. The idea is ostensibly to write a novel, to prove it can be done. Really it’s about setting goals, sticking to them, and blowing past all the mental blocks that are, when you get down to it just mental.

That being said, in one month I had 50,000 words, not quite up to my goal, but I knew it was ambitious. Then, well, the US government stepped in.

At work, we go through a semi-unscheduled yearly audit from the US government. I can’t resent the need, just the timing. My weekends have been cancelled. I’ve worked probably 42-44 hours in the last four days. We’re just prepping for the audit that begins in earnest tomorrow. It should only last 7-14 days, and then I can get back to writing. In the meantime most of my hours and nearly all my neurons are spent prepping for a semi-surprise audit that can shut the store down if we fail.

Granted, we prep all year to stay ahead of the power curve, but it’s still a time for controlled panic.

That is the update for, despite all my needs and wants that burn inside me like the rumbling heart of thundercloud, I owe it to my coworkers to do my best to put the best face forward for the store. Then I can get back to my dream.

I just find it slightly maddening that during NaNoWriMo I will wind up putting fewer words on paper than last month, as pressure to put material out continues to skyrocket. Plus there is the stress, which has both made me incredibly creative and inversely (perversely?) dry up of words like a severed tongue in the desert.

So excuse me if I’m going slightly mad. It is my natural state.

Oh, and I did have some fun just before my life exploded. I was able to stage a book cover for The Last Ride of the Iron Cowboy, an upcoming steampunk novella.

They came out great, thanks to Joe Cowles.

Trouble brewing in Nowhere, Indiana.

You see, today my publisher got his email from Amazon and it recommended I Know Not. That is, needless to say, advertising you cannot buy. As of this moment Here are the rankings:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,596 Paid in Kindle Store

#17 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Magic & Wizards
#32 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy > Epic
#45 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic

I’ve crested 1,000 copies, and sales are going strong. That being said, people are sifting through and buying copies of other books I have released. That is BIG. Now my only problem is… well… I don’t have enough books out. So I finished the shorts I had committed to, and have started on my next novel. I’ve given myself 60 days to get 120K words. Yep, kinda short time frame, but I have to build a base and I have to do it fast. If these people buy the book and like it, they will need to have more before they forget who I am. I want to write for a living. That means lots and lots of writing. I must produce.

And that seems what they will carve on my tombstone.

It helps, though, because I keep getting a little notes from people. They see my tweets, my FB updates, and they say: I write more because of your updates.

And for those of you that think this is a small thing, I just have to say that it is not. The hardest thing for a writer to do is actually sit down and write. Seems odd, but it is so personal, so exposing, so intimate a thing, putting your thoughts and beliefs on paper – no matter how veiled – has given birth to a whole set of jokes about avoiding doing what you love most that only writers understand.

But I can’t give into that. I have to keep running, and as always, accelerating.

There are professional moments, of which, I am especially proud. When I was published. When I was accepted into anthologies with much more experienced, and in some cases Hugo Award nominated and winning authors. When my daughters read my story told from the perspective of a teenage girl and didn’t cry foul at any of her thoughts or feelings. When I told a story that was hard for me to write, hard for people to read, and yet they read, and finished it because it was so GOOD they hungered for the last period. Here I am. Another milestone. The power of it has me shaking.

There is an interesting psychological thingie (and that is the technical term) I like to call: The Million Dollar effect. Look at someone and ask: What happens if you get 1 Million dollars?

Most of them no longer want to work, or go on vacations, or buy houses, yachts, planes, and so on. Well, then they start looking at a million dollars. Though it is more money than many of us will make in a year – a decade – lifetime even – once you have a million dollars, even theoretical ones, you realize there is little you can do with it. Yes you can live in the same apartment you live in now, eat the same stuff as now, and drive the same cars, plans very quickly eat up the excess cash. That doesn’t even touch charitable giving, funds for later generations, and so on. It turns out one million is just another number.

So, a few months ago my publisher and I were walking down the halls at a convention. He asked:

“So, Dan, what are your goals?”

I curled my fingers into a shaking rock, “Rule the known universe with an iron fist!”

He sighed, “In publishing.”

The reply was instant, “New York Times Bestseller.”

He nodded, “Agreed, good, but more… short term.”

I actually had to think about it. I mean, I’m the kind of guy that sees the top of the mountain and that’s my goal. To this day I don’t know if he was worried about me burning out, feeling that I needed encouragement, or if he’s precognicient, or just a sneaky bastard (you’ll see). So I said: “I would like to sell 1,000 copies of one of my novels in a single year.”

This may seem small, but I did not speak blindly. Can’t remember where I saw it, but googling this phrase gets three billion hits:

                Of 1.2 million books published in 2004, only 10 sold more than a million copies; fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000, and only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies, and the remaining 950,000 sold fewer than 99 copies.

Now, this is lifetime sales, but after the first year things slow down a lot. I had sold dozens, then hundreds of my titles in a year, but I had never broken 1,000. It was the next step to go from one out of a million authors, to one out of thousands. I was satisfied with this. Well, I think he knew something I did not. I am pretty sure of it in fact. See, he gets reports from places and sees how fast/slow something is moving, and can predict trends and see where the ball is going to bounce. As an author I get a check once every six months and a report, but it’s all six months late and full of hindsight.

So the publisher calls me a few weeks ago and says: “I Know Not is outselling your other books.”

After a Tex Avery style reaction involving soda in my sinuses and on my laptop screen, I asked, “Which one?”

“All of them.”

And then, and then I did not ask the question that is obvious now. I got my royalty check and did a dance, expecting even greater things next time around. What I did not ask, however, was: All the books EACH or ALL TOGETHER. That question was answered in an email two weeks later:

                Dan,

Get out the celebratory drinks and prepare a new goal. I Know Not is set to sell the 1,000th Kindle copy on Wednesday, September 21st

–Your Publisher (and don’t call me a sneaky bastard, you jerk! My wife reads your blog!)

Which now that I read that again, maybe lends credence to the precognicient thing.

In any case, I danced around again, then I realized that things were even better: these are only Kindle sales. Print sales have not been figured in, and while most scifi/fantasy titles are heavily weighted toward kindle/ebook formats, it means that I am already there, already past there with more to come. I’ve gotten to the next base camp. And I’m sticking with the mountain climbing thing because I feel like I need oxygen tanks. I’ve done it. Again. And while it is a trifling thing to sell 1,000 copies for many of my friends, it is new to me. Then I remember the book has only been out for 13 weeks, the busy season has yet to happen and… uh… I need to sit down for a minute!

I am one step closer to being able to do this for a living. I am a little bit nearer to my real goal.

Next is 5,000. Two novels published in a single year. I would also like (God, are you listening?) to have some geek icon seen reading my work.

And I want to thank all the authors, editors, and publishers, that have gotten me this far. And thank you to my wife who refuses to be surprised at my success, because she believes in me so thoroughly.

Because reaching a goal is no reason to stop. It is a reason to run faster.

One would think that after 12+ hours of typing out timed, stacked, and nested (as in the Russian dolls) purchase orders, that I would like to kick back, relax, and take the edge off. Well, the edge is gone, I am laying in a hotel bed, watching the only (original) Matrix movie. But my head can’t stop. I should be finishing up the final few orders, but I am pretty wasted. This job requires thought to do properly. That being said, I still can’t shut it off. And it brings up another thought. A personal thought. A hard thought.

And, try as I might, I gotta write about it tonight.

I grew up as the youngest of three children. My sister is something of a prodigy. She might tell you different, but I’m telling you that my sister’s is sharp enough to shave electrons off a molecule. My brother is mechanically inclined, and I remember watching him work on his cars, put together electronics, and so on. It’s all magic of one kind or another to me. Both of them played sports. I… well I did not. Needless to say, ok, fine. It has to be said: I was the artsy one. Not bad at school, but I actually had to work for it, and no manly skills to make up for the odd ‘C’. They were years older than myself, more advanced, and constantly correcting everything I said. Nothing wrong with that. I was young. And wrong. They were kids trying to guide me. Perhaps ungently, but they were kids, and knew about as much about child rearing at that age as I did.

Then there were adults. I had a prominent adult in my life that liked to ask me if I ever thought about anything I ever said and did. I was asked often. Mrs. (I still shudder to think anyone mounted that formaldehyde-ridden bride of Frankenstein horror) Cooper, my first grade teacher called me ‘dull’.  Well, dull, uninspired, and lazy. Don’t fool yourself. If you call a first grader dull, they know what you are really saying. Other examples may have been my own overblown reaction to criticism. Not Cooper. That woman was a kind of evil that needed burning at the stake.

Girls my own age called me stupid. They did it a lot. Everyone gets that, but of course by that point I was pretty sure I was a half-wit. That started to change toward the end of high-school. I started to have complex thoughts. A series of nasty surprises and personal tragedies lead me to trust myself and my own opinions. My first year in college a friend offered to give me an IQ test on the fledgling internet. I did the worst thing I could have. I took it.

It told me I had an IQ just above room temperature in Alaska, I was lucky to be able to button my shirts correctly half the time, and I probably should have some kind of minder. Failing out of my first year did not help.

I have spent  most of my life believing I was, overall, pretty dumb. Even getting published really didn’t help much. Then, I began noticing stuff I could not explain. I could find holes in certain political thoughts. I was able to build complex plots in my head. I may have ended my education too early, but I was still able to grasp situations and then delve more deeply into them to break them into their component parts and redesign them in more efficient shapes: plots, processes, and so on.

Then, one day, a guy I used to lose arguments constantly with as a kid, well, we were arguing about something stupid: a movie or book or something. I said the plot was horrible and backwards, and he said something like:

“You have no idea what makes a good story.”

And I replied, “Sure, the only published guy in the room doesn’t know what makes a good story.”

And that was it. I started to question. Quietly. In the back of my head, because some things are just easier to be borne than to struggle against.

A few years later, my wife took the MENSA test. I was already convinced that she – like my sister – was scary smart. I was – stupidly it turns out – afraid that the moment someone told her she was a genius that she would start wondering what she was doing with a loser like me (which I have wondered every day since we got together). She passed. She joined MENSA. She did not leave me.

And she enjoys talking with me. My wife and I are exceptionally close, and we do enjoy time together. She does not lord over me, or even put up with me. We are partners, and she respects my opinions. She told me I was smart, but I did not believe her. All that being said, I eventually did take the test.

I was terrified. I thought: this is it. If I fail this, I’m an idiot forever. I was already an idiot forever in my own head, but that is neither here nor there. It’s amazing, because for the longest time I had thought myself crippled, honestly crippled. You can show me someone who cannot walk, someone that cannot hear, the very small, the very large, the blind, and I know they have troubles, but these are all things that can be overcome. Hard work, dedication, friends, and thought can overcome these obstacles to a long and full life.

Stupid? Well, if your brain is broken, it’s not like they can fix that. And if you were just born… dull… damn sure you are not thinking your way out of it. But it was better to just leave it be and think I was a lucky idiot than to… well find out that things were even worse. How? I don’t know, but just to have it confirmed again would be horrible. There would be no turning from it, no denying it. I took the test anyway.

Yes, I passed.

I was accepted into MENSA. I am not an idiot.

According to the tests, I’ve got more than a few neurons firing up there. In fact recently they started sending out your scores, and.. well, I’m wither pretty lucky or pretty bright. Maybe as bright as my sister, my wife even.

And it’s very strange, it hasn’t changed how I view other people. Not even a little bit. I don’t think I’m better, or even smarter. I have found out that this perception of myself is a lie, and it has wrought miraculous changes. All of a sudden my world has changed. A flood of new perceptions have come ashore and carried a layer of dirt that has filled deep cracks in my head. The waters have receded and then those wasted tracts have started sprouting life.

The other day I did something clumsy and said,  as I have since I was a child, “Boy, I am stupid.”

And for the first time. I did not believe it. I said it, I heard it. But the words held not more weight upon me than a light breeze. I started giggling, because it was as if I was seeing the sky for the first time in a long, long time. My wife stared at me, confused. I could only shake my head and laugh.

And I have experienced what few men ever have: I have become free.

I am honestly not that sure if this makes any sense to anyone else, or if it means anything to anyone but me. I guess I fire this arrow into the air because if anyone, anywhere, can use this to shirk off their own hair shirt, to put away the flagellant whip, then it’s worth telling the world that I had some trouble growing up.

Since then I have seen all my flaws through a magnifying glass. I limited myself. I hurt myself. In short, I systematically abused myself. However it started, from whom and by whom, purposeful, accidental, innocently or evilly, it does not matter. I called myself stupid, and that is my fault. The wound may have started by others, but I was the one that kept picking at it, keeping it infected until it could never close and heal. I did that to me. It took me a long time to get rid of it.

I hope, if you have one, it’s as easy to heal as mine.

Just don’t wait a lifetime.