5/8ths is better than half.

Getting unplugged is always something I look forward to. Finally that stupid pest of a pump is someone else’s problem and I no longer have to worry about the hose getting caught up and yanked from my port. Finally I can start to flush out the poison. Finally the pain and discomfort can start to clear up.

Four days of constipation followed by a couple of normality and then finally a storm of diarrhea. Still it beats the last time I visited Portland and got food poisoning. That was a fun trip. Except for that first day in Portland. And the week or so of cramps and shits.

You know what I fucking loved about Portland? Powell’s books. A book store that takes up a full block. And it was packed on a rainy Sunday. For that Portland, I will forgive you for all the conversations I had to endure with strangers.

Maybe it will help that my dosage has been cut by about a fifth. I’m not really noticing much of a difference in my daily symptoms. Moderately cold things still hurt to the touch. And let me better define cold. I don’t mean the depth of an arctic winter level of cold, where your hands would freeze, blacken and drop off. I mean this thing came out of the fridge, normally I could handle it for hours with not a jolt of pain – now my hands and throat are stinging.

Hey, that room temperature water that is so blandly tepid? That is going to make your throat feel like it is seizing up. And you better let that yogurt sit out for a while before eating it. This week, amongst others, I was set across from a Vietnam vet. We didn’t interact, but you get to overhear things about other people’s experiences regardless. I’m bitching about discomfort when it comes to the cold, but he had the total package, fatigue mixed with loss of appetite.

Hard to complain about my stomach pains as he fights a bigger fight. I am relieved that my path isn’t that much more difficult. I don’t know how much willpower I possess to force myself to eat when I really am not feeling up to it – not if our positions were switched.

I had a conversation in my off week with a fellow partaker of the chemo drugs. We swapped symptoms before my nurse returned and passed on the platelet counts. Or, if it doesn’t fade, this could be my life from here on out. Forgot to ask if his eyes really hurt when he sneezes, but on the whole we had a venn diagram of shitty experiences to compare and contrast. I could be facing two years of sensitivity to the cold. Two years before it might fade.

Permanent nerve damage indeed.

We had storms over the weekend. Storms and hot weather. Hot and humid weather. The kind of weather that made me happy that my roommate had plans that meant not being in the apartment, leaving me free to lie about in front of a fan in me undies. Yeah, that is almost a brand endorsement.

The miasma of weather did a fine job of robbing me of what little sleep I managed to claim. Friday night, fifteen minutes after falling asleep I awoke to discover that heart racing against the incoming storm. Adrenaline rush. But it did manage to get me up in order to close the windows.

Get me up and then keep me up. That is the worst. Not being able to get back to sleep. Come Monday I am usually exhausted. I don’t feel physically fatigued. Maybe a little less stamina than before. But for the weekend of and a few days after chemo, I’m nearly dead to the world as my brain fogs up.

Did we have plans on sunday? A true pity for I shall be sitting about listlessly whilst napping.

I’ve finally shaved my head. I had grown tired of it looking like our national forests after the Republicans auctioned off all the timber rights at a bargain price. Looking at myself in the mirror at work, where I have “better” lighting, was just depressing. Vainly attempting to keep something from slipping through your fingers seemed a mite pathetic to me.

This is the first time in my four decades of existence that I have ever had my hair this short. Now I look like a cut-rate Lex Luthor. Though I am slowly getting used to the sight. Maybe this year I’ll dress up as Henry Rollins for Halloween. Though I’m going to need to do a lot more push-ups to get something like his physique.

How am I? I’ve had better years.

But I find that I’ve had worse years. But Epicurus said that even in the depths of illness, pleasure outweighed the pain. I find this to be true, but I do have manflu cancer and chemo.

No, I’ve had a couple worse years. The second to the contender being a few years back when the company I worked for expanded drastically, while refusing to take on more help. I spent so many 12+ hour days working open to close to help keep up. And failing. I made six grand in overtime that year as my days were: get up shower and then eat, go to work, and then come home eat and go to bed.

Taint much of a life. But I did manage to make a dent in my student loans.

I spent a year being angry at our management for not doing something to rectify the situation, Why would they ignore that problem? Sometimes it still pisses me off. It is in my nature. But I have learned to quickly let it go. It doesn’t mean anything.

The worst year of my life came after I graduated college. Not that first 12 months, but the twelve following. The first year after graduation I spent most of my days writing. I would go to bed in the morning excited for the coming day, and then get up excited to get back to work. It. Was. Awesome. After I got my morning’s writing done, I would usually go for a walk. Summer or winter, the same. Then come home and write some more.

I was going to be a professional millionaire novelist.

Except that never happened. I put in the hundreds of hours of work to create this thing. And nothing ever came of it. One of the two biggest disappointments of my life, one that I’ve whined about more than once here. And will probably bitch about again.

After that grand year of hope, I ran straight into the wall of nope. I moved away from the city that I had lived in all through college. I found myself in a place that I didn’t in the least care for. Do you want to publish my novel? No. Do you want to publish my novel? No. Slowly that dream was just wrenched out of my hands as I realized I was never going to be able to afford to write full time. There was no escape.

I got a job making a cut above minimum wage for a pharmacy with a high turn-over rate. Seriously it was around 20% at the height of the fucking depression. I spent my days taking boxes out of boxes, putting stickers on them. Taking those stickers off of the boxes, and applying new ones, putting them into other boxes and then putting different stickers on the other boxes. I worked in shipping. The job was absurd and boring and pointless. It ate at me. I was making just enough to survive as my student loans crushed my soul.

They say to take what you want and pay for it. It took me ten years to pay for college. It may have been worth it.

I became the head of my department. Not through skill but more by winning through default. Al that meant was I got $0.32 more an hour and bitched out by management that ignored me when I made requests to make the job easier.

I was depressed. A lot. And fell back on my drug of choice, MST3k. That always made me feel good again.

Hail the crew of the Satellite of Love.

Moving on. Or not.

Today I was asked by my co-worker how I put up withe the  laziness and stupidity that I am surrounded with while on the job.  He was surprised that the co-workers just seemed to mindlessly wander around and disappear like the randomly spawned positron pair at the event horizon of a black hole(shit yeah I've been reading physics books!).

Simple, said I:  I daydream about dropping everything, loading up my Aveo(I assume I bring get one small suitcase and an extra pair of socks) and moving west.

What will I do for a living?  They asked.

Simplier:  With the assistance of my cat Zuul, I will travel between small towns and solve mysteries/fight injustice/drink smoothies.  Like so many 80s television protagonists before me.  No case will be too small, so long as it is pitched by the beautiful love interest of the week.  I may even consider getting a proper van.

If you have a mystery or injustice to solve, Zuul and I may be out there. Unless it's taco night.  Then you'll have to wait.  Unless you're a buxom beauty and also have tacos.  Then step right on up.

Fear us evil doers.  Fear us.

Reflections from Walden Pond

To future adventures.

I've not gone out for much excitement(for what approaches excitement in my life) lately, instead it has had to come to me.  As much as the temporary jolts of adrenaline can be considered an adventure.  But driving the equivalent of New York to LA and back every month rather quiets any desire I might have to travel in the short term on my days off.  Besides that, many of my friends are busy in their own lives, so travel companions are difficult to find.  Already drive alone five nights a week, and have no desire to do so on the weekends as well.

For the last several months of my resumed employment, I have been listening to audio books during my long car rides to fill some of the emptiness. Well at least on the way out.  Often on the way back I listen to music or just sit in the silence and let my mind grind away on the question of the day.  When the drudgery is neither dangerous and depressing it descends into a deep dull.  How's that for alliteration?  But I've complained about it enough about it in the past.

So far since January my listening list is as follows:  The Wheel of Time, all 13 books.  Then some of Mark Twain's travel journals.  Caesar's Legion.  I made a vain attempt at Descartes' Dissertation on Reason(this did not go well as most of it seemed to be the author talking about himself.  More than that, at least one of the readers sounded terrible).  Now I'm returning again to Walden.  The mood struck me so.

Walden.  My English teacher in my Junior year of high school was obsessed with the book and its author.  We spent an eternity wrapped up in four or five weeks working through the rambling work of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emmerson.  I hated it, as my love of reading involved mostly science fiction and fantasy novels.

Many years, and one boring job that I hated later, and I decided to give Walden another chance.  This time though, I would go with the audio version as I worked that boring job that I so hated.  Have you heard of librivox?  Got to Librivox, they are awesome.

That was in 2009.  The first half of the book tickled me greatly and I revered the man's words.  The last half, well he just wanders about in no particular direction.  Some of his stops are interesting, whilst the rest I could easily skip.

For those of you who have never heard of the book, it consists of the naturalist Henry David Thoreau's rambling narrative about his two years of experience in the woods.  Back in the 1840s he built a small shack on the shore of Walden Pond in Massachusetts and lived a rather care-free life.

Were he alive today, Walden would effectively be HDT's blog, as he writes about everything that crosses his mind.  From his observations of the natural world down to his views and thoughts about the nature of what the nature is of living a good life.  Some of his thoughts and words resonate deeply with me, while others are just nattering opinions. Still, you take what you wish from the giant soup of human thought as you mix together your own sustenance and leave the rest to burn or rot.

I wonder if this blog will be my Walden.  I suppose I could work to make it so.  If I manage some deeper thoughts.  But how has HDT affected my own thinking.  How have his thoughts struck me?  Here are a few quotes that I quite enjoy.

1) As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

*To my thinking, this is a reminded of how much time we spend waiting for life.  I don't know if that was what he had intended with the statement as this brilliant line jumped out at me as the surrounding context faded back into the bushes.  I answer with “I do not wish to kill time, but embrace her.  Alas she slips away so quickly.”

I try to fill my days with as much meaningful work as possible.  Usually I fail as I am tempted away by funny cat videos.  It has been a week or more since I last picked up my zombie novel, or any other story.  As it is, I am squandering my existence with the struggle to survive.

2) Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something

3) I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

* As an introvert and a hermit, this one rings very true for me.  I spend about 22 in every 24 hours in a given work day in near complete solitude.  But there's a difference.  I have a phone and the internet.  If I wish to connect with someone I always can.  Loneliness is easy enough to stave off in that fashion.  What I wish is for more meaningful human contact.  As it is many of my good and interesting friends are far off.  As an introvert with a touch of social anxiety, it is difficult(read this as near-impossible) to refill those ranks, leaving a hole in my life. It does not help that I am very picky in the people with whom I wish to associate.

Glorious solitude though, and the bent of freedom that in bestows.  My thoughts are my own as is how I spend my time.  HDT also has a quote on that thought that I shall do my best to paraphrase:  A man who travels with a companion must wait for the companion before he may leave.  A man who travels alone is his own master.

Regardless, we all need companions, even a hermit.

4) Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, aye, to life itself than this incessant business

5) The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it

*This quote is ingrained in my bones, and has been for a number of years.  I often ask myself whether the object or experience is worth the hours of labor that it took me to get that money to pay for it.  Often the answer is no and I rightly move on.  Others, the answer is still no, but I ignore my gut and fork over a piece of my life for that shiny whistle(to mix analogies and bring Ben Franklin into the conversation).

The man is quotable and he gifted humanity with hundreds of such nuggets of gold.

I've so far in my life been content to be a grunt and work for my daily bread.  No thinking in my job, just simple monkey work.  My jobs are usually just a series of tasks, where I have few responsibilities.  This is really all I trust myself to do.  I fear the possibility that I'll be given a task that I am not equal to and be overwhelmed.  Call this an insecurity in my own skills.  I little understand the big picture in many endeavors of business or finance and the like.

I really hate the idea of being forced to focus on a task that doesn't really interest me.  I just wish to explore the world at my own rate and pick my own direction.  As Tolkien said, Not all who wander are lost.  Is this laziness?  I've completed some seven novels, two dozen short stories and a play.  They are not brilliant masterworks that will inspire future generations for centuries to come.  But they were fun and they are mine and I trust myself to accomplish that much.

Previously I was not bothered much by doing grunt work in low end jobs.  They allowed me my free time.  But then my co-worker has been talking about his life.  He lives in a trailer with his wife and three kids and has worked odd jobs all his life.  He seems happy enough and content, but I don't feel that I wish to follow that route.  But at the same time, I really don't have a mind for business.

Should I like to have a wife and kids?  I think that would be an excellent adventure in itself.  Life would be interesting.  Or maybe the wife and freedom from the duties of offspring.  Whichever.  Both seem to me fascinating possibilities.  After all, I've already experienced being alone.  Let's see what the universe brings.

There is another failing, waiting on the universe and fate.  It is half of why I play the lotto on occasion.  Waiting for Fortuna's kiss.  But the bitch ain't a'comin.

For now, I have simple dreams that seem to be out of my reach.

To be continued.

Fortune's Least Favorites

The Mega-millions jackpot went up to over $640,000,000 this last week, sending the nation into a flurry of greed and hope. For that kind of money a lot of dreams could come true. Not the ordinary dreams about buying a home and family, those dreams that most families can attain in a dozen generations of work. Like buying a tropical island paradise and a fleet of F-16 fighter jets to defend it. The winner(s) of this drawing would be very wealthy, and all over night. Their wold would change and perhaps not all for the better. I suppose that this depends on the person in question and their ability to handle this huge overnight change.

One Hundred and Seventy Five Million to One. Those are the odds against any individual intent on taking the Mega-millions lottery jackpot. One Hundred and Seventy Five Million possible combinations of winning numbers. Only a fool would game in those odds. I brought it up so as you might expect, I am a fool who gamed with those odds. Every now and again I like to drop a dollar on a ticket. As a driver, every night I pass at least one billboard. Fuck the State for that reminder. That billboard keeps the notion alive – which is exactly what it is meant to do. Think of how many hundreds of millions of tickets had to sell for the purse to grow so large.

The process of the drawing is simple. The player pays $1 for a ticket with 6 numbers. The first 5 of those numbers are drawn from one pool of numbered balls ranging from 1-56. The final slot is drawn from a second set ranged 1-46. The more numbers you match on your ticket, the larger the pay-out. They say that the over all odds of winning on a given ticket are 1 in 40.

there is no skill involved ion this game, just reliance on the nebulous concept of luck. Luck is a funny thing that I'm not sure I fully understand what it all entails. It seems to be applied to the regular happenings of the world in addition to the combination of choices that you have made, as they interact with the decisions and actions of the people around you. Your decisions toss you out into the world and and the stream that is Luck, and maybe you'll find gold or be flung over a waterfall. The future lies unseen around the bend, and who knows what rocks have been tossed into your path.

What a Quantum way of looking at things. I have no doubt why people cling on a belief in a friendly Deity guiding their steps. After all, who but an utter maniac would willingly leave their house when they have so little control over their lives? This develops a sense of Fate I think, and lends itself quite well to taking extraordinary chances. After all, if God wills it, you may just win. Those odds are for other people. A small part of the back of my mind has that thought stuck on repeat, maybe I'm fated to win the big one!

But playing amuses me. I'm aware of the odds, vaguely, and thinking about such usually makes be break out in laughter as I recall the silly thing that I just did. I doubt I fully understand the full extent of the meaning of these numbers, my simple monkey brain isn't wired to grasp such concepts. But I know what the near edge of impossible is – and lotto odds are as close as one can get. Still, one in one hundred and seventy five million is far better than zero. There is still a chance and all the chance requires is for me to relinquish a single slim dollar.

That IF stands up tall and shouts loud to a lot of people. An inexpensive IF with a high payout against those long odds. What is a dollar, or even five or ten, against say quitting my job and buying a yacht and crewing it with gorgeous young women to sail the seas? These are pleasant enough daydreams, and they lead to why I play the lotto in the first place. I like to daydream about what I would do with the money. Help the family, invest in some causes and finally disappear over the horizon on my pleasure boat.

175,000,000 to 1. I know that I'm not going to win. It is a fine bit of magical thinking on the part of adults to believe that they will ever win. Even if you drop a c-note, your odds are still negligible. The employees of the company for whom I work for put together a pool. Kick in $5 and you get a share of the L00T should one of the tickets happen to hit. We're a small company, and the boss bought in as well. There were jokes that if we won the jackpot, the company's doors would be closed on monday. Mostly I laughed up my sleeve at the idea while day-dreaming about what I'd do with my winnings.

The pool lead to those interesting conversations about what we would do with the money. Sometimes people are willing to share their dreams when discussing hypotheticals, and you learn quite about about the people around you as they shed that light on how their minds work and what drives them. I don't think I'll discuss my own plans, beyond the fact that I would pay off my student loans.

In the end, somebody wins. Somebody has to win. And if somebody is going to win, then why not me? Hope is a funny thing like that. But for now, I need to go and cancel my Yacht order. Of the $90 we collectively put up, we got $5 back.

In the mean time, I'll be back in that place between Hope and Reality that I inhabit. Until that jackpot soars again.

Hack Novelry part 2 Errata – an addition to yesterday's winding path of whining.

So, I explored different avenues with getting my work published. Here, I had something that I made, a world that I slaved over and lived in for months at a time, and it was just sitting on my harddrive collecting sub-atomic dust. One day it occurred to me to see whether or not I could upload it to Amazon for the Kindle as an independent. The answer was yes. They required a steep 65% cut of the profit at the time.

E-Publishing of course has its pros and cons. Like about everything else on the planet. I like the phrase 'double-edged sword'. It cuts both ways. The positives and negatives are also heavily intermeshed, with reasons showing up on both sides of the list, depending on how one looks at these things.

Pro: No middlemen, you go directly to the public, there are no publishers or agents, thus you get a larger share of the profits. That seems to be me the highest Libertarian ideal of the free market in action – though I'm not a Libertarian. No editors, your story stays exactly as you envisioned it.

Con: No editing, no assistance with cleaning up your prose, and you only have one set of eyes (unless you have a horde of willing friends – most of my friends are busy, uninterested, or both), to catch mistakes and help add that layer of polish. Lack of resources or expertise – you're forced to market it yourself. Lack of reach, no inexpensive print books(I prefer print to electronic). There isn't anyone out there actively working to pimp or improve your story. You're alone in the world to fend for yourself. I find myself needing feedback, a seperate set of eyes. It is difficult to envelop the entire story in my mind. I cannot see the forest for the trees as they say.

Woohoo I just brought out another tired old adage!

There are, out there in the vast wilds of the internet, services that will create a physical copy of your book. I've tried it – and sold somewhere around 3 copies(I have a feeling that at least one of those was a friend of mine). I don't blame people for not being interested, the first version had a lot of formatting issues and I'm the sole editor, so you can safely bet that there were mistakes aplenty. In fact, I've myself purchased nearly as many copies(2) as proofs.

As it is, I am a one man show. I create my own blurbs – which I mentioned I lack skill in doing. I've slathered together my cover art, some of which I am proud of visually, though I'd rather a real graphic artist uses their skills.

I started out and my sales tactic was to upload and wait. In the mean time I'd Calculate how many sales I will need to quit my shitty job and take up the gauntlet full time. The mathematical principal worked out to the answer “Way more than you're getting fool!”

The independent ebook author's dream seems to involve a deep hope that eventually someone will find your work, and then rave about it on their blog – prompting others to buy and rave. A word of mouth campaign. I'm just waiting for the likes of Simon Pegg or Penny Arcade to magically show up out of the chaos. So far, the wait has been long, and I honestly don't expect it to ever end. Magical Thinking and all that.

Really, if wishing and Magical Thinking worked, I would be a billionaire Ninja-Wizard who lived in my underground compound with a cadre of brilliant and beautiful geek women of all different flavors. The so-called author of “The Secret” can cram it into all of their various orifices. And then pack it in with a chainsaw.

Really though, how does an independent get the word out? I want to be fair and honest, no hype or bullshit. I hate, HATE, advertising. I also hate approaching strangers and just talking about my work. How is the blog different? You're coming to me if at all. Once again, I'm just tossing this up in my little point on the web. I like to think of it as a recording of me talking to myself.

Amazon has offered a service where one can give their books away free. Wooh? Well, if it gets you some buzz, why not?

But once again, how do I go about capturing an audience to spin my tales? I've been told that the stories are great. The characters are interesting and enjoyable. Sure, all of that was from my mom, but a mother must be Objective when talking about her kids prospects right? Pfah. Actually, after a year of complaining that she didn't get a copy of zombie 1, and receiving one, the Mom still hasn't gotten around to reading it(she doesn't like zombies). - all relevant compliments have come from outside of my circle.

The high point of December was receiving a letter from a fan wondering if there was going to be a zombie 5. How simple it is to raise hopes and spirits. A few positive words from a stranger is all it takes. Yes, I have plans for zombie 5, but other stories have gotten in the way. Especially after my hopes flagged over the first four books not going anywhere.

I just need to keep pushing onward. To find the energy to finish the projects I'm working on. The time to write the ideas that I have bumping around in my head. This is slow going.

Hack part 1

Hack Part the One

I enjoy writing. To the point that I have two blogs, though I don't update either as often as I should like. Sometimes concentration is difficult – my attention span is so short.

Sometime back in the spring of 2005 I was watching 28 Days Later with a friend of mine. After she freaked out at the Church Scene, she told me about her grand plans whence came the Zombie Apocalypse. She and her friends had decided that they were going to hole up in the local Walmart Dawn of the Dead style. Really for them Walmart was the only choice. The local mall sucked donkey gonads, and it even did that poorly. The big box concern was the most logical destination for a bunch of geeky fucktards to flee for if the dead started coming to life. Never mind that all the other assholes in the city would probably have the same idea, this is their fantasy damn it! The other denizens can find their own big box store turned fortress.

This sparked an idea in me, to write a story about those people. The ones who made plans for the ZombPoc and then had it dropped into their laps. It was a fun idea and my plan was to write a 8,000 word short story. Maybe 10,000 words. And then see where it took me. I made fantastic headway and the writing took on a life of its own, to the tune of about 35,000 words by that summer. Then I lost steam and put the project aside.

Then I graduated from college. I live in Michigan, and our economy has been in the cesspit for decades. It hadn't improved, and has only since gotten worse. On top of that I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics, and a second Major in History. The History Major? I added it to the queue because I thought it would be more applicable to the outside world.

Heh. Stupid art fuck. Who let you leave home and play adult?

As I worked through college and being cheap and obscenely dull I had money 'saved' If you don't take into account the tens of thousands in student loans. With no real prospects or direction in the real world, I tried to decide what to do next while applying for Fed jobs in the region. After graduation I came across a copy of Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide.

Boom. I was inspired again. I began writing 2,000+ words a day seven days a week. Every day after the morning routine I would work on the first 1,000 words. When that was done I would get some exercise and otherwise enjoy my afternoon. Then dinner. Then around 8 or 9 I'd start working on the second 1,000 words. I looked forward to getting up and going to work every day. The story was a blast and the process of creating it was a blast.

Six months after I graduated I had 300,000 words of zombie uprising goodness following the travails of several groups of survivors for one full year following the apocalypse. I named it the Survivor Chronicles(i am shite when it comes to naming). I was proud of what I had done.

I thought I needed a story that long, as in college I had found Robert Jordan and other fantasy authors. Those men and women who create those giant doorstop volumes. This must be what the Industry was looking for me thought. They will see my work and pay me thousands and thousands of dollars for the honor of being my publisher! Now all I needed to do was decide what I was going to do with my newfound fortune.

Wrong.

As a Ceramics/History major, I have no real education in the ways of getting published. I just had to leap into the awaiting arms of Google and figure it out. The worst part for me was the crafting of the Query Letter. How do you take the whole of who you are, and your labor and winnow it down to a concise trio of paragraphs? And make all of that interesting? And sell this idea to a complete stranger.

Even now, nearly five years and additional five novels later, I don't have the foggiest notion. There is a feeling that my letters are hit or miss. But after a lot of thinking, something came out and my first twenty pages were on their way to Tor books. Even then I wasn't sure exactly what I had. One book? Or two? Would there be more? My story was an open-ended affair with no over-arcing plot element. There was no great evil to defeat. Just people surviving the apocalypse as best they could. Surely, foes sprang up. But there wasn't a built in ending. The series would last as long as my interest and imagination could hold out. Right now, all told the series a bit longer than the Lord of the Rings. Or about the same length as a single Robert Jordan(RIP RJ) novel.

Here you go Tor. Take it in! This was sometime in the summer months of 2007.

I don't know if it's a failing of the creative mindset to be able to construct and inhabit such grandiose delusions. Or maybe I was just driven by a naïve optimism. All while teetering on the brink of insecurity and self-doubt. They were like a pit beneath my feet. Tor books crushed my hopes with a single letter. For about a week.

It was a blue week as I climbed out of the pit and pushed forward.

I was at the time only aware of one zombie novel, and that was the afore mentioned Max Brooks' World War Z. Though I admit that I really didn't go looking, so there might have been dozens of zombie novels by then, and there probably were. There is only one overriding fact in my mind. I like zombies. Many of my friends share the interest. Someone must want to read this story.

I then sent out more letters and samples. One at a time. To any Publisher who foolhardily took direct submissions from the bottomless sea of unknown hacks. TSR/Wizards by far sent the most promising letter with a 'No, but if you write something more in our genre, please think of us.' Or at least that's how I translated it. The letter left me feeling a mite more hopeful than I had been.

I still have that letter here somewhere I think. I kept them all as a reminder (mostly so I didn't forget and try again).

Oh well, by then I was already working on what would turn out to be Zombies 3 and 4. Each time rejection hurts a bit less and the effects go away all the sooner. I've built a shell of pessimism. I send letters with little exposed hope. When I open the responses, from those who have the courtesy to respond at all, I chant my mantra. That expected answer: Thank you for letting me see, but this doesn't work for me at this time. The bane of the struggling writer.

I've had the phrase repeated to me a hundred times or more now.

There are those who might suggest that one takes a more positive outlook and mindset. To expect that good things will happen. As if one could force their will on the universe simply by wanting something and expecting it. This is Magical Thinking. And it's utter bull shit. Ask any five year old who didn't get that pony that they asked for for Christmas.

All you can really do is keep writing and keep trying. So, I moved onto agents. I've since retired my zombie novels and moved onto other stories. Short and long. No dice. But I keep writing and submitting. All while working – mostly in between employment. An eight hour shift takes too much out of me and drains my focus. My creativity comes in bursts.

About that time, I had quite a job that I hated. HATED. For a company that I despised. I am fairly sure that remaining there would have driven me to a heart attack and an early grave. So I handed in my two week after over-reacting to some petty event. And there it was again, the chance to write and the forgotten desire to do so. Even with the uncertainty of being able to eat it was the best decision of my life. I quit, so there would be no unemployment. Back to living on savings!

The cycle began anew. Write, revise and submit. And be rejected.

A wonderful tool has evolved as I quite my job. Or at least it came to my attention. Independent publishing, largely with eBooks. Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Smashwords among a legion of others. My zombie novels have finally found a home. Once again my optimism was fired up and I jumped into a whole new maze of confusion. How much do I charge? I started high and then toned the price down, tweaking it as I thought about my problem.

My stories don't have professional editing, or cover art. I am a one man show. One who really doesn't enjoy editing at all. It's work, where writing is fun. The words just seem to flow on past my eyes, making it difficult to fix problems that are there in the prose. But it needs to be done and so I tackle the problem as best I can. Write, revise and submit.

And hope. There's always that fragile hope.