Can't, I Has No Time Turner or T.A.R.D.I.S so THE TIME!!!

     I posted this on my Twitter today and it got me thinking: "I currently have 666 emails in my inbox. This shit just got real." and none of that is spam.

     I get more email now than I've ever gotten in all my time online and I love getting emails from friends, people who read my rants, rambles, and opinion screams on my different sites, and people who read my stories, and I want you to know your emails positive or negative about my writing give me smiles on bad days and good ones alike, and I will answer each and every one, but I can answer emails on time and write daily blog rants, rambles, and opinion pieces or I can tune up the stories I'm writing to a point that my chaos brain puke can be understood.
     If I focus on the former and not the latter you get the stories I released on the internet so for. Not ashamed of any of those stories, lessons learned, steps on the road, not deleting them, but this is how it must be for me from now on. Born in 1974 and I have been writing almost my whole life in one shape or form and now I'm at a point of finally seeing the road I want to take and how to get there but I have to build that road and take those steps and I'm not the brightest bulb in the outhouse so it takes me a lot of time and effort.
     As I said, slowly I'm attacking that 666 and I will still update the sites but probably no where near as much as I have in the past.

and the irony of writing a blog entry about needing to do less things like writing blog entries.

or is that irony? Damn you Alanis....

Can't, I Has No Time Turner or T.A.R.D.I.S so THE TIME!!!

Where I Talk About Meeting Neil Gaiman, Driving In Miami, and The Love Of Stories

     

     The drive to Miami from Melbourne is never that bad until we actually get into Miami and then I'm just glade I have Mar as my pilot because the lady is great at directions. Even if she gets turned around on the maps she's following because they are off she gets us where we are going and since we aren't dipshits we leave early enough to give a buffer in case we do run into bumps along the way that hold us up.

     This blog entry will be photos for the most part with me writing comments along the way because if I just write a blog entry I'll be here all day and not get any work done my own stories talking about how much I admire Neil Gaiman.

     Also at the end I'll include my Twitter posts while going to the signing and while there. Don't worry, there weren't that many because on the way I was co-pilot and music picker and when we got there I was so nervous I couldn't even read.

     When we got there the line was already long as shit but the organizers, Books & Books, had it well organized and had friendly people working the lines. This was handled a whole lot better than when we went there for a Stephenie Meyer signing a few years ago. This picture doesn't even show half of the line though. Oh, a shit ton of Doctor Who shirts were to be seen.

     Here's another half half of the line. It's basically went all the way around the whole building. It was held at Temple Judea, a really nice place. We were only in line outside for about an hour before being seated in the cool inside for a good rest before things started.

     Brad Meltzer did the introducing duties. He was pretty funny. Later he would be the one who read the crowd sourced questions. I enjoy Q&A's handle like this inside of mics in the crowd. This way all the completely stupid questions are tossed to the side. I'm sorry but some people are just stupid.

     Then it was the main event. First Neil told the birth of the story that would become The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. It was a cool story about missing his wife and shows the journey can go from idea to finished product.

     After that he read a chapter from the book. Neil is one of the few writers who I love them reading their own books. The audios of him reading his books are some of my favorite audios ever. I can't wait to dive into The Ocean At The End Of The Lane tonight and also reread Books Of Magic since now it's blessed :)

     The Q&A was really entertaining with equal parts comedy and campfire storytelling. When Neil talks about Myth it reminds me why I read in the first place.

     Then the first group was called to get in line for the signing. See getting there early pays off. Mar's family were really late and but ended up getting to have photos taken beside him because it took so long and that's cool for them but if I had gotten to get that close I would have been crying like the young lady who got her books signed right before we did. No serious, I'm not making fun, I was close to that myself.

     Mar spent the time in line reading. A novel concept. Yep, yep, I said it. Though to be honest she was reading the ebook but that doesn't make for a good on theme picture.

     By this point I was so nervous I was starting to get a little sick. Yea, I was totally cool. Cool guy sucking in his gut, trying not to run away with a anxiety overload.

     They were prepared with lots and lots of markers and pens. I spotted a huge box behind everything after getting our books signed. For some reason this just caught my eye. The little things about what it takes to make a signing this big work smoothly.

     Mar getting her books signed and telling Neil about her library and some of her teens. See if you are nice to your librarian they may just mention you to a writer when they get to meet them.

     Mar gave him a Coraline that was made for him. He really liked it. I think this type of stuff like cos-playing has to be one of the coolest things that can happen to you as a writer.

     Neil signing my copy of Books Of Magic. It's my fourth copy because I've given two away and someone five fingered another. Yes that's a Mountain Dew bottle in my pocket. I could have used a Double Dew on this day. My nerves were shot people, I needed a push to just get me through without my anxiety in overdrive making me find a nice dark corner to crawl into.

     Mar as we were leaving. I took a moment to sit on the steps of the temple to eat my balled up Ron Weasley sandwich that I was too nervous to eat during things. Some people were eating inside but that just felt wrong to me. I didn't know the custom for eating in temples so I went outside.

     My blessed copy of Books Of Magic. Today while writing I'm going to watch Neverwhere and Mirror Mask and Star Dust and Coraline.

After Neil Gaiman Q&A, meeting him, and getting books signed, now watching Coraline. Tomorrow watching Neverwhere while writing.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 16h

I got stuffs signed by Neil Gaiman. And I didnt pass out. Its a happy Brian day.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 17h

http://twitpic.com/cytoom 

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 17h

Also in pure TMI fashion, I need to piss bad.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 17h

In line to get books signed. The reading and Q&A were great.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 19h

http://twitpic.com/cyte0b 

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 19h

Brad Metzer(sp) is introing him.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 19h

Mar is the best with directions. Miami isnt the easist place to find places but shes a pro.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 19h

Sitting for a bit before things start is good after dealing with Miami traffic.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 20h

Inside now seated in the cool air waiting for talk to begin.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 20h

Waiting in long line, in hot sun, to see Neil Gaiman. Best day ever :)

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 22h

There is traffic and then there is dipshit traffic. I'm among the stupid and dangerous right now.

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 23h

Me"Stop looking at penis clouds while driving!"

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 23 Jun

After I had a coughing fit. Mar"You choke on nothing." Me"Air went down the wrong way."

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 Brian Williams ‏@hangofwednesday 23 Jun

Anxiety, fear, and stress. Not just how I am when I go to a book signing to see a writer I admire.

Where I Talk About Meeting Neil Gaiman, Driving In Miami, and The Love Of Stories

Where I Talk About Being Not Ready To Rewrite and Ebook Pricing

 

Reading a Justine Larbalestier blog entry on rewrites helped me to see I'm not at the rewrite or revision or rewhatever stage yet. I'm still writing my first look at the stories I'm working on. I was stressing about what to do with rewrites, like really stressing on how to do them, and on and on and on about all the words used by writers I admire and those I'm not fond of. Everything I'd ever learned about rewriting and revising was dancing through my head all day once.
Then I read her entry which triggered in my head the truth that this draft is still me writing my first thoughts at the stories hitting the page and it still wasn't the time for me to think about revision or rewrites. Next draft should be where rewrites start but not this draft. It's funny as a writer how you come to things.
  Maybe I should also read one of her books since I like her blog so much?

Onto something else. This morning, well this morning for me, my friend Damon and I had a conversation on Twitter that went from me talking about Netflix needing a playlist function to book pricing and a few things in-between. Later in thie entry will be the best I could cut and paste the conversation. Since I was replying by computer, my phone, and the Nook it didn't end up all in one conversation on the site.
The thing I love about conversations on Twitter isn't that you can have a deep discussion on a subject, because its hard to do that, what I love is how you can have mini conversations and also how you can talk about things that get the gears of the brain going.
 

But before showing you that I will rant about publishers and right away have emails telling me how stupid this stuff is for me to say, and my replies will be that I'm not walking their roads, and people will only say that's because I'm not good enough to get published, and I will say that's not totally truth but Fuck You for saying it.
Or I'll just go off on a rant about how in my native language merry, marry, and mary are pronounced the same.
A long time ago, when I was in college people were asking about digital distribution of books and music and films and TV. There really wasn't much of it then. There was a few books on CD Rom and Napster started right as I was leaving the college world but it was a time of people asking for this.
The companies that controlled and are struggling to continue to control the distribution were hiding from the internet and the digital future like a religious person scared of someone for simply believing different than them which is one of the most illogical ways of living. Also produces pretty harmful results for both parties.
You see this thing today where publishers act like Amazon is Lucifer with his hand up your husbands ass making him do evil works, when in fact Amazon is the symbol and big sign that screams daily about how stupid publishers have been in the past, and continue to be.
Amazon isn't a golden child. I hate that they don't allow You Pick The Price or Free as options in their ebook stores. And a number of their practices make Wal-Mart look like community partners.
But it's fucking laughable when big publishers and big book chains and yes a lot of writers go after Amazon. Really? Really? Here's the deal, if any of those publishers and book chains would have had a lick of forward thinking they would have created a Amazon but no, instead they feed, feed,and feed a system that created the huge piracy black market that exists now online.
Big bookstore chains say Amazon is hurting them. You mean like how small business have always went after you?
Big publisher say Amazon is pricing them out of business. You mean how you have always used pricing to control stocking in bookstores? How you have pushed away unique voices to keep a status of "Whats Hot" going?
And its a real shame to see so many really intelligent writers going after Amazon as The Great Satan. Again not saying Amazon is pure but unless you are just sucking a company dick, which I can understand, how can you honestly do that. Publisher have ripped off artist and writers for years and now you are defended them like they are Mother Teresa.
Though she was kind of a prick from what I've read so maybe that's a correct notion.
The truly amazing grill of stupidity that the entertainment industry is cooking itself on is how they are still stuck in those days when I was in college. They still see themselves split in publishing regions, release regions, pricing regions. They still haven't even gotten past the fucking ideas of lower ebook pricing or even for some day to print digital.
I'd like to talk about this for a lot more and I could easily but I have stories of my own to work on and isn't that one of the biggest fears that a lot of publishers, record companies, and film companies have in common. They are scared that we all do have stories to do and now there is a platform for that. That we are might want to work to tell those stories. Team up with others to create art. Team up with writers, artists, editors, actors, directors, and they will be standing there wondering what to do with their paperclips.

Here is the conversation that took place on Twitter I spoke of. Talking with Damon always gets my mind going for the good ideas and sometimes bad:) It's always been that way. Again maybe not a great cut and paste job to represent the conversation but I wanted to put it here anyways:

Brian Williams ‏Need to get a lot of writing done with storms keeping me off the laptop yesterday. Enterprise will be my background noise

Brian Williams ‏I wish Netflix had a play list function or would that be only useful to writers watching tons of stuff at once while writing?

damon ‏I wish Netflix would be willing to (easily) take $100 a year from me for their service. Oh well. #freetvinstead

Brian Williams ‏Don't they have Netflix where you live or just hard to pay for it from there?

damon ‏No official Netflix here, but then, I'm old school, don't mind paying for stuff (as thanks) that I already get free anyway.

damon ‏generally, a US issued credit card is needed for paid subscriptions, but, for eg, Hulu (basic) under VPN works fine.

Brian Williams ‏Sounds like another company not taking full advantage of the market that's out there. Then again its been that way all along...

Brian Williams ‏with the internet. Companies stuck in past ways of doing things, not able to move forward, because of stupidity and fear.

damon ‏And yes, if you're TRULY motivated to WANT to pay for content ... there are workarounds ... but why would you bother.

damon ‏the mantra 'content wants to be free' is only truly applicable when there's no (easy) paid alternative.

Brian Williams ‏Everyone knows I'm anti-piracy, mainly because of peoples lack of admitting its stealing, ...

Brian Williams ‏but companies created that black market and made it so strong through lack of foresight, courage, and creative thinking.

Brian Williams ‏Oops, I mentioned piracy online. Great way to lose followers and get a ton of direct mess about how stupid I am :)

damon ‏I'm more than happy to pay for content. But at the moment I can't. So I don't. And I still watch what I want. So who wins ?

damon ‏Case in point : Kindle book prices vary on geography, but i can import a print copy freely from anywhere, at local price.

damon ‏For me, it's the "local publisher sets the price" disclaimer that Amazon give - and often higher than a print version !

Brian Williams ‏Pricing on ebooks is a mess all over and hurts the progress. I don't think all should be free or $1 but overpricing and the like is stupid.

Brian Williams ‏Well the mindset of region pricing and region copyrights is hurting progress a lot too. Need to go or be reformed.

damon ‏and for me it's a motivator. if someone wants to charge me more for a product based on location, it's a deal breaker.

Brian Williams ‏Dvd released a year before in one region there will be piracy and if a book is priced higher in one region there will be piracy.

Brian Williams ‏I don't want them on places like Amazon, not because they are the great evil, they don't allow pay what you want and free pricing

Brian Williams ‏I meant to say I don't want my books on places like Amazon.

damon ‏and that's fair enough too - fortunately, we all have a choice where we buy / distribute. it should always be thus.

When asking Damon if it was ok to use his posts in a blog entry, something he correctly said we'd be seen as old fogeys for doing. Back in my day the internet....

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The photos are from a recent trip to St. Augustine with Mar and Queen. I took them on a cheap old camera. Queen is a really talented photographer and she was taking shots of everything that day. Since I don't get the chance to do photo blog much of anymore I thought when I do blog entries on anything else I'll add some photos I've taken recently because I enjoy sharing them.

photos by (c)Brian C. Williams,

Where I Talk About Being Not Ready To Rewrite and Ebook Pricing