My Obligatory "Thoughts on Twitter" Post

I tweet.  Actually I probably tweet too much and of course I see a kazillion tweets about how to effectively tweet to get followers, and how to sell your products and yourself and yadda yadda yadda.  I DON'T CARE!!!!!

There.

What do I tweet about?

1. Writing.  It's why I joined in the first place.  I like to interact with other writers both about writing and day to day things.  I have learned so much about writing, publishing drinking wine from these great folks.
• #WritingTip when you are writing turn off spell/grammar check, they only slow you down. Editing and writing are two separate tasks.
• Just had a brain buster of a thought… mobi is to epub what apple is to android take that as you wish
2. Family.  I have two adorable kids and an awesome wife.  I love to share anecdotes, comical annoyances that I have.
• Given up on getting our daughter to sleep in her crib so we delegated the task to our 4y/o. Seems to be working! #ParentingTip
• She grasps the bars screaming hysterically unable to utter a word. She wonders what she did to deserve this. #NotPrison#TellThatToBabyGirl
3. One-liners.  I think I'm funny (I'm not offended if you disagree, lots do :D).  I toss these out when I feel like it.
• I hope there's no airports named after Bush "We are now landing in the bush…" (screaming passengers)
• Did you hear about the #Zombie outbreak in the Cannibal village? It was self contained.
4. Smart ass remarks.  Come on people, sometimes you just ask for them…
• Tweet: The fiance had all four wisdom teeth taken out this afternoon. Fun!
• Reply: @rainyofthedark fun? Oh you're sharing his pain meds ;-)
• Tweet: If you smoke a four leaf clover... a leprechaun will magically appear and eat a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms with you.
• Reply: @Jack_Wagon1 isn't that with a five leaf clover?
5. I also "run" two dailys, The Flash Fiction Daily and The Daily Mongerer

I talk to everyone of the people that I follow as if they are old friends, whether it's George Takei or @JSHyena.  I don't expect responses, retweets/etc.

What I don't tweet about

1. I don't do #FFs/#WWs/#MMs etc, I have nothing against them and I do occasionally read them and even follow people if you have a good reason why.  I don't like them because they take a hell of a long time to do and I like to bring attention to someone you should follow whenever I think of it.
2. I don't do a lot of marketing.  Sometimes I toss out links to:
•  my book: Why am I giving away my book?Exposure.How do I get that?You reading.What do I want in return?An honest review #FreeBookhttp://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Counting-Down-the-Storm/book-M_5sB8b0uEq_R7Ac23KFuw/page1.html …
• my blogs, (This one, Alphabet Wine)
• my music Noteflight - Dennis Leask's Home
3. My sex life, sorry
4. Everything I do/eat/drink or send a tweet from every site I visit on-line
5. I also very rarely ever curse, get too political or controversial

What I retweet

1. Funny stuff, if it makes me laugh I'm sharing, even if it is a bit off colour
2. Good tips, great sites, interesting articles

If you follow me I will follow you back unless you

• Are part of #TeamFollowBack
• Have not tweeted anything what-so-ever
• All of your posts are about 
• marketing
• Self help
• Inspirational Quotes
• Random Links
• Jesus or other religious dieties
• And if your posts start being or turn out to be like the above I unfollow

So, I'm not going to tell you how to Twitter and I don't want you to tell me either 'cause guess what, twitter is a Social Network and I am there to:

1. Be Social
2. To Network

Thanks for Reading

Blog Tour With B.C. Young

Web Site/Blog

Facebook Author Page

Twitter

Google+

I am pleased to announce that I am the first stop on a great author's Blog Tour!  He has published a volume of short stories entitled Unspoken Stories Volume 1.
B.C. YOUNG

He was kind enough to answer a few questions ---here--- and get in on a scavenger hunt ---here--- to win a free copy of Unspoken Stories!
You can also find a review of Unspoken Stories ---here---
What do you do when a story bounces around inside your head for three or four years? You need to get the story out to people, and the writer needs to tell it. Author B.C. Young had this exact thing happen to him. He was tired of driving back and forth to work everyday, conceiving a story in his head that no one could hear. Before long, he started to work on his stories. He decided on a simple approach that he felt anyone could read. His decision was to tell the stories he writes through shorter stories. The shorter stories end up telling a bigger story, and the bigger stories tell the final story. As a result, each story feeds off the next and the previous.
Currently his work involves the Miscorrection series and other science fiction stories. This is a favorite genre of his because it allows for so many possibilities in storytelling.

Unspoken Stories Volume 1.

A collection of five short stories to entertain and stimulate the mind. These stories were almost never told, but they were saved from being unspoken.  The collection includes the following science fiction stories.  Click the titles to read a 50% excerpt of the story, you'll be glad you did and even happier if you buy it for 3-tacos (that's $2.99).

Copy Bird: Bill is trapped and lonely. He breaks free of his prison and finds something he doesn’t expect.
“Now you sound like a broken record. I get the point. You can’t have a conversation–only copy. You’re a copy bird. Can I call you that? Copy Bird?”
Despite the fact that the bird doesn’t talk, he imagines that it likes the name. He reaches out his hand for the bird to perch on his finger. The bird does as expected and jumps to his finger. He thinks to himself that the bird is as light as a feather, but in reality it’s two hundred.
“Now you sound like a broken record,” the bird repeats, mimicking his voice perfectly.
“Wow. That’s quite a feat. Sounds just like me, Copy Bird. By the way, my name is Bill.”
“My name is Bill,” the bird says.
“You certainly are a copy bird.”

Going Home: Promises are important to keep, and Commander Patrick Murphy never wants to forget that.
When he got to the dining room, he looked out the window. As he knew would be the case, his dad was in the backyard trying to fix the lawn mower. He kept pulling on the cord, the engine would begin to kick in, and then sputter to a dead stop.
“Hey, Dad,” Patrick called out, after opening the window.
“Patboy! What are you doing here?” his dad asked, excitedly. He moved away from the mower and started walking towards the window.
“They gave me short leave time. Why don’t you come inside? It’s getting dark. Even if you get the thing working, you won’t be able to mow.”
His dad turned back to the mower, and had a look of defeat on his face. Patrick knew he never would get it working again.
“I guess you’re right,” his dad said. “I’m sure your mother’s got dinner just about ready anyway. I’ll be right in.”
Patrick closed the window and knew his dad would have to give it one last try. As he went to sit at the dinner table, he heard his dad make a final attempt, but the mower didn't start.

Josie Dorri And The Coffee Ban: What if the government banned coffee? See what happens to Josie Dorri when they do.
She went over to silverware drawer and pulled out her coffee scooper. She had used the scooper for three years, and she wouldn't make coffee without it because any other scooper didn’t make the coffee as she liked it. A scoop for every cup she always said and it made the coffee strong, but not too strong; bitter but not too bitter; perfect and you can never have too perfect.

As she put the scooper into the coffee bag, she stopped when she saw the headline on the kitchen monitor screen. It read, in big bold type:

COFFEE PROHIBITION STARTS TODAY

Consumption Prohibited, Possession Prohibition Pending

The Present: Miles Gray has a good life, but doesn’t realize it. Often, a trip through time is all that is needed to open up a person’s eyes to how good they have it.
As he did every Friday before getting home from work, he stopped at a local bakery call YumYum. They were only five minutes from his home, and a dozen doughnuts every weekend was Miles’s treat to himself for making it through the work week. (He didn’t actually eat all of the doughnuts—his wife and kids would always help out with that.) YumYum’s doughnuts were definitely the best a person can buy and did not compare to any other bakery. The particular doughnut Miles always enjoyed and loved was the Buttermilk Stick. It was the perfect doughnut to warm up on Saturday morning, sit on his front porch, and eat with a hot cup of coffee.
After buying his doughnuts, Miles enjoyed the last five minutes of his drive. The vehicle had the aroma of the doughnuts filling it, and every time, Miles would give in to eating one of the doughnuts as he drove. More often than not, the Sour Cream doughnut accompanied him on the last leg of his journey home. He’d eat it slowly, making sure it lasted the entire five minutes to the point before he was walking through the door of his home. He often thought how he wished life would stick him in that moment with no return. It’d be a wonderful place.

Running To Keep Her: Neil is obsessed with exercise and eating right, but it’s not for his health that he does it. He does it to keep her.

That’s when Neil saw her. The shadows cast by the moonlight made it difficult for him to distinguish her features. She had long hair, and stood slightly shorter than Neil. She bent down and took a drink from the fountain, and a whole minute passed before she came back up for air. He noticed something familiar. Her silhouette looked like something he’d seen before. It had been dark. The street lamp outside the bedroom shone through the window and cast a seductive shadow on his wife’s body as she moved towards the bed. He remembered the night well because he thought about it often. What he saw now, reminded him of that night.

Available at:

US

UK

DE

Interview With B.C. Young Author of Unspoken Stories Volume 1

Web Site/Blog

Facebook Author Page

Twitter

Google+

I am pleased to announce that I am the first stop on a great author's Blog Tour!  He has published a volume of short stories entitled Unspoken Stories Volume 1.
B.C. YOUNG

Read a short snippet of each of his stories ---here--- and get in on a scavenger hunt ---here--- to win a free copy of Unspoken Stories!
You can also find a review of Unspoken Stories ---here---


What do you do when a story bounces around inside your head for three or four years? You need to get the story out to people, and the writer needs to tell it. Author B.C. Young had this exact thing happen to him. He was tired of driving back and forth to work everyday, conceiving a story in his head that no one could hear. Before long, he started to work on his stories. He decided on a simple approach that he felt anyone could read. His decision was to tell the stories he writes through shorter stories. The shorter stories end up telling a bigger story, and the bigger stories tell the final story. As a result, each story feeds off the next and the previous.
Currently his work involves the Miscorrection series and other science fiction stories. This is a favorite genre of his because it allows for so many possibilities in storytelling.

Unspoken Stories Volume 1.

A collection of five short stories to entertain and stimulate the mind. These stories were almost never told, but they were saved from being unspoken.  The collection includes the following science fiction stories.  Click the titles to read a 50% excerpt of the story, you'll be glad you did and even happier if you buy it for 3-tacos (that's $2.99).

THE INTERVIEW

First of all, did you know that using Google docs you can send, share and update in real time?  I watched as Ben answered my questions which I posted as a document there.  That was pretty cool.

Obviously you think while you drive, how do you keep story ideas from flying right out the window?

I find the best way to do this is NOT sticking my head out the window when I drive. This is especially the case when the window is up. I tried it once, and there was a lot of shattered glass and blood. 

Good Call!

The Quality/quantity debate really isn’t a debate at all is it?  I have often had the same misconception that you had, how has your writing changed after realizing that writing a great story like Copy Bird in six hours is possible?

It’s freed me from the slow, over-thinking process of writing. Now, when I sit down to write fiction, I let the creativity flow, and don’t get hung up on word use, grammar, and spelling. It’s made my writing quicker, and I feel, better because I’ve allowed my creative voice to speak in my writing, rather than my technical one.

It’s a lot easier to edit after you write and I find it doesn’t interrupt the flow.

Josie Dorri and the Coffee Ban reminds me a lot of some of the more off the wall short stories that Stephen King writes (that is a compliment and not part of the question :D)  Are you a coffee fiend, or what is that the story behind it?

Yes, I do drink coffee, but I wouldn’t consider myself a fiend. The story idea came from my brother-in-law. He thought it would be a funny to have a story about a person who doesn’t have their coffee for the day, and a bunch of bad things happen as a result. As you can tell in the story, I morphed this idea a bit by adding in a coffee prohibition by the government and giving a reason for the bad day. I had a ton of fun writing that story.

And I loved it!  I can relate to her, without that morning cup of coffee I may as well be a square tire!

What made you decide to sell “All My Fiction”?  What if someday you become a world renowned writer with a large publishing house?

I took it from a reader’s perspective. What if for a flat rate I could get everything a writer published? I’d love it. So I figured other people would, too. It’s definitely less of a risk for the reader. How often have you read a book only to not like it and feel like you wasted your money? I have. But of course, my stuff isn’t bad like that. I think you’ll like it. Still, for the pessimistic reader, All My Fiction is just the ticket!

If I become world renowned, All My Fiction will still be around, as long as distributors like Amazon, Smashwords, and others allow it. Anything written under the B.C. Young name will be in there. The only catch is you want to get in early, because the price goes up every time a new story is added to the eBook. Translation: Buy it now before it costs $1,000,000!

I know I have read a book by an author who I liked a story of only to be really disappointed and never bothered with him again.  Your idea is brilliant!  Maybe not all of your stories will appeal to a reader but they won’t stop reading you (and recommending you as well) We should get in now I think!

Who inspires you? 

Many things inspire me. When it comes to writing, friends and family give me ideas. Past writers like Isaac Asimov, and current ones, too. Sometimes, the guy standing in front of me in line at the grocery store inspires me. A box of doughnuts on the table in a scene of a movie I watched inspired me to write my short story, The Present. Characters and stories are everywhere, it’s just a matter of looking for them.

Do you see your self as a short fiction writer or do you think someday you will find yourself immersed in a novel?

Let me put it this way: I see myself as a fiction writer. Currently, my works are short stories, novelettes, or novellas. We tend to differentiate the length of a story to give people some perspective as to what they suggest. But at the end of the story they are all stories. It just so happens that some are longer than others.

I can also say that I am currently working on a novel length work. I’m doing this under a pen name, Desmond Shepherd. It’s entitled Fram Gage and The I.A. (The “I” and “A” in the title are still secret, but will be revealed in the coming weeks on my site).

Cool!  I can't wait to read it!

Did you know I can watch you type?

I didn’t until I saw you type. Then, I wondered if there was a ghost in Google Docs. Once I stopped freaking out that my computer was talking to me, I accepted it and decided you might actually be stalking me. Are you?

Not me, I pay people to do that!

Thanks for taking the time to do ask me a few questions and reading Unspoken Stories - Volume 1. I really appreciate it!

And thank you for allowing me and my readers an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better!  I would have to say that short story collections are my favorite!  I love all of the stories in Unspoken Words Volume 1.

Available at:

US

UK

DE

Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress here I come! (someday, maybe)



I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am terrible at self promotion.  This was my biggest downfall when I self-published through a vanity press (I just remembered what they're called, I also try not to think that I actually did this because it makes it sound like I was naïve and taken advantage of, which I may have been).  It's not that I don't enjoy promoting myself, I loved doing readings and book signings and would love to do more. I am not shy and I think I'm a born public speaker and incredibly outgoing.  The problem is that I have difficulty setting these things up.  It's difficult to explain where the problem lies.  If everything is set up for me, if I am told I need to be somewhere for a signing or a reading I will go, I will sign, I will read, smile, shake hands, greet people.  A reading is my favourite as the crowd has come specifically to hear me talk.  Signings are harder, especially if I am expected to leave my post or get people to come to me.  I am not a salesman, I am a writer, I will chat anyone up that wants to talk to me, but if they don't specifically want to, I feel like a dork (perhaps it's my lack of retail experience).
Even promoting on twitter feels wrong. I always think I am clogging up the twitterverse and my friends feeds with junkmail.  How much more advertising do I have to do there? I can't even seem to give away copies of my Novella "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27). I find that when I try to do self promotion I do it in such a sheepish nature that I likely don't get anyone's attention or use humor which if it does lead someone to look at the story they realize that it isn't something humorous and they step away.
The other issue is time.  When I'm not doing my full time job, helping my wife raise our two very young kids, taking care of our two dogs, keeping up with repairs and renovations on an older home, attempting to keep our yard from growing an old car on blocks or writing I am sleeping.  I'm not sure where I would fit in enough time to convince people to buy my books.
It is obvious to me by the lack of response I am getting, lack of sales, lack of reviews and lack of any form of excitement, that I am doing something wrong (even if it's the writing, someone should have said by now, "shut up your book stinks").  I am not giving up on "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27) though, I will keep doing what I am doing and hope to get at least some interest going.  I still hate to give it away though and after June 27th won't do another freebie for a while.

So, I have come to a conclusion (which will likely change by the time I hit PUBLISH POST and then three-hundred and fourteen thousand times from there until my current WIP is complete), I am going to attempt to get traditionally published next time. Writing Query letters, submitting samples, researching agencies and spending time on the wrong end of restraining orders from agents, can not be as much work as trying to get a few thousand people to read my self-published novel. I think the 15% royalty I will make will be worth it, after all that's not much better than you get at Amazon, and they give you nothing in return.


So fair warning Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress you shall know my name (it will be on that list of people that aren't allowed in your building)


Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Calling All #Pubwrite rs Free advertising for your e-book!

I am this ( || ) close to posting my novella "Counting Down the Storm" to Smashazonbles (That's Smashwords, Barnes and Nobles and Amazon).  Someone on twitter today mentioned about helping other indie authors by including each others synopsis in our books.  I think it's a great idea!  I have decided to delay the launch date for my own book in order to do this.  This is an open invitation to all of my #Pubwrite friends.

Here is some criteria before sending me your synopsis:

• Have a look at mine (here) and see if you think a blurb about yours would fit, there's no point advertising a YA novel at the end of my adult oriented fiction or even SciFi/Fantasy etc.
• Your e-book needs to be currently for sale at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Smashwords, the three stores that I am going to sell through.
• The synopsis should be short, about 150-200 words, don't worry about editing, formatting  etc, I can do that. 
• If you have a good quote from a review you would like me to include as well, that would be cool too, for example:
• "The Greatest Piece of Modern Swashbuckling I have Read." - B. Beard, Pirates Port Magazine
• Try to keep it to a sentence
• Another option is if you think the first 200 or so words of your book would draw the reader in and force them to buy your e-book that would work as well.
• Send it to me via E-Mail (Twitter DM me), Post it as a comment in this blog or whatever
• If I get multiples I will pick the one that I think would best work with my book, don't feel bummed if I don't pick yours.
• As payment?  Nothing.  Big publishing houses pimp their other authors all the time, this is just doing the same thing.  The next time you publish something do the same for someone else.

I will place your blurb at the end of my book on it's own page and have it available in the Table of Contents.

I will give people until Wednesday May 18 to submit a synopsis.  I will let you know either way if I will be using yours.  If no one submits one or I don't feel any of the submissions would work out I will go ahead and post my e-book with out it.

I hope this is the start of a really great thing for Indie Writers!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask