Writer's high

This topic was my idea (the only topic idea I've ever had for this blog so I'm pretty proud of it.) I am in the midst of a massive writer's high right now.

I've done 10k in 4 days and am still cranking out the pages. If you follow the blog then you know that I have not been writing much at all the last couple of months. With the wedding craziness and the honeymoon vacation extravaganza writing took a serious back burner to life.

But now that I am back to life as usual the pent up writing power has been unleashed. I am just typing and typing away. The characters are speaking to me and I can't seem to get their thoughts and actions down fast enough.

Though I have started watching Queer as Folk again, I am hoping this does not become a distraction of epic proportions. Just nice sound and pretty, pretty boys in the background while I write.

When I am on (meaning when I am writing regularly) I feel like nothing can touch me. I wake up easier in the morning...even after staying up later than usual at night. I smile more. I make jokes and have more fun when I'm with my family and friends. It's as if not writing makes me tense and when I am in the zone I am relaxed and more easily amused.

Writing can be like a drug, especially if the writer's block has been hefty for a while. Once the words start flowing again they don't want to stop. It's the most amazing feeling.

Even the day job seems less annoying when I'm writing. This is what I was born to do, this is my talent, this is my gift. When I use it I feel better than I can even describe.

XoXoXo
Dakota Rebel

Getting High

Lately I haven't had too much experience with having a writer's high. When everything else conspires to constipate your day with bureaucratic blockage of life, it's easy to forget why we enjoy writing so much. As a new writer, I thought publication meant I had leisure time to work on manuscripts. I envisioned a lot of humming and smiling while I typed to my heart's content. I imagined the old fashioned mail carrier type, hand delivering my mail to the apartment (despite the fact that there are slim metal boxes marching along the wall in the lobby to avoid the face to face confrontation of mail delivery) with check after check of royalty beauty.

Not such a reality, in fact. I had no concept of the business aspects to writing. I had understanding that jumping into publication meant I had better get a thorough understanding of contract language, assertive contract debate, promotion, record keeping, sales to the reader and sales to the publisher for upcoming work, nor did I realize how much commitment there was for chats, interviews, short articles (blogs). It's all become enjoyable but for a first timer it can be overwhelming. This is all much, much different than I expected and it is easy to lose your "high" about writing when these things step on your creativity and then bounce on it until bureaucratic flecks of dirt cover the last dregs of creative surface area.

I've been wallowing in the dirt.

There is a high, however. It happens when those other things fall away and you are left with the river. Thought, ideas, images, characters flow like a river from you and appear on the page almost without effort. It's the perfect storm of creativity, excitement, purpose, and pleasure when your work takes wing of its own accord and flies into the skies almost without any effort from you. It takes on its own breath, its own strength and from a fledgling half-featured creature it leaves the nest and soars above the landscape you thought you created but was in fact created by the stretching of a plot which birthed its own landscape.

When that happens, all the stars are in alignment and the gods smile down on you with favor. That's when the magic happens and that, my friends, is when the writer's high is its highest form of perfection...

To this humble *ahem* writer.

On Cloud Nine

The Writer's High - that feeling of being on cloud nine. It's the feeling of success and creativity that encompasses a writer while engrossed into a project.

It's more than the sale of a book. It's the feeling that I get as an author when my characters finally talk to me, or when I can type "the end" at the end of a project. But it also comes when the details of a new world finally fall into place and I get to see this - hopefully - three dimensional world that has a history that has helped to shape the lives of the inhabitants of the world. It's also the beginning of the story and getting ready to embark at on a new adventure.

The writer's high can follow you throughout the length of a story, while you are getting to know the characters, the world they inhabit, and learning their story and what draws them to this point, before giving them their happily ever after.

I'm sure there is more to it than that, but my brain is completely fried with the new project that I'm working on and a Veteran's Day Relay Run. In the mean time,

Happy Reading,

Simone

e-Piracy...You CAN Do Something!

This past week, the Writers' Evolution has drawn attention to the devastation being wrought on a daily basis by Internet piracy. Perhaps, before now, you were pissed off at finding your books on these pirate sites, but felt there was little you, as one person, could do to stop it. Hopefully, this week's posts and the many thoughtful responses have shown you that you are not alone. This crime is hurting us, our friends, our favorite writers, and our industry.

But, you ask, "what can one person do to help stop these pirates?"

Well, folks, Stephanie Michels is about to step back up on her soapbox.

As some of you may know, I'm a cop groupie. I have great respect and admiration for the "Boys in Blue" and the "Men in Black"(their female counterparts, too), and the work they do serve and protect. So, I did a little research on what we can do to fight this crime.

I found that the government formed a group specifically to target Internet crime. It's called the Internet Crime Complaint Center, known in government acronyms as the IC3.

The IC3 is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Its purpose is to provide a means for victims of Internet crimes to register complaints. The crime can't get investigated if it isn't reported. The IC3 provides this information to federal, as well as state, local, and international agencies, which are combating Internet crime and, in many cases, they participate in Cyber Crime Task Forces.

The IC3 will handle complaints crossing the broad spectrum of cyber crime matters -- including Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) theft (that's your eBooks, authors).

So I'm challenging you! Let's become activists rather than silent victims.

Instead of just posting your requests to desist to the owners of those notorious pirate sites, please take it one step further. Go to the following web address http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx and use the simple form you'll find there to Make a Complaint to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

It's easy. You just provide:
* Your name
* Your mailing address
* Your telephone number
* The name, address, telephone number, and Web address, if available, of the individual or
organization you believe defrauded you.
* Specific details on how, why, and when you believe you were defrauded.
* Any other relevant information you believe is necessary to support your complaint.

File a complaint about every site where you find your books.

File one again if you find books posted again later.

So, what can one person do? Maybe not a lot, but when you band together with others of a like mind, you can take action and focus attention as the no-longer-silent victims of these Internet pirates.

Believe me, if enough authors and ePublishers file complaints -- especially as eloquently as many of you stated your cases on here -- the government has to look into our complaints. As Brynn said, we're taxpayers and the government wants the revenue the ePirates cheated them out of, too.

Let's do it, folks. Let's speak with united voices and say "We're no longer going to tolerate this." Enlist your writer friends. Enlist your editors.

Let's join together and fight this crime.

I double-dog dare you!
~ Stephanie

So I Guess This Means I Have a Following, Huh?

Once upon a time, there was an idealistic author who dreamed that she’d write a book and someday a publisher would snap it up then hundreds of people would flock to get it.

It was such a beautiful dream. She would sit at the keyboard for hours, fending off friends and family with the mantra, “Someday, I will be published. Someday, this will all be worth it.” Hours and days she’d type her little heart away, plotting and fixing and weaving on paper.

Then, finally, she did have a story. A great story! And she sent it off to a publisher. And after a short wait, they took it. After eight years and many drafts of many stories, finally the idealistic author's dreams seemed to be coming true! She waited and waited for her release day! And again, finally, it came.

And people did flock to get it!

To a pirate site. Where they stole her book…

“Stole?” you might question. “Isn’t that harsh?”

No, actually, it’s not. I don’t care if you own the site, if you uploaded the book, or if you were the one who downloaded it. It’s stealing. Theft. Unlawful borrowing. Robbery. “Sharing” eBooks is illegal. Downloading and uploading books on ‘free share’ websites is illegal.

I’m telling you this on behalf of hundreds of authors. I don’t expect that this problem will stop. It will take the intervention of law enforcement to slow the insidious pervasiveness of this crime. And trust me…they’re on it. Authors pay taxes and when we don’t get paid, the government doesn’t get paid—and you know the government wants their money.

Still, this is not just going to disappear, but it is my hope to educate people just a little on this matter. And maybe, just maybe, we can slow piracy…at least a bit.

Many eBook writers are parents who provide for their families with their writing. You may say, “It’s just one book. Sharing this one book is no big deal. Downloading this book is no big deal.”

Isn’t it? The author might only make thirty cents on that one book, but what if 20,000 people download that book? That author, that person who is doing their job to entertain you, just lost $6000. Let me tell you something. Most eBook authors make hundreds (or less) on a book, not thousands.

This scenario, this downloading of 20,000 books, isn’t mine though I have books that have come very close to that many free downloads. But that single mom who’s trying to pay her bills and feed her kids, that’s someone I really know. That one book that one person posted on a free site, stole $6000 from her family. It is a scenario repeated over and over with author after author.

People need to consider the ramifications, the way that they are hurting people, hurting families, before they ever download or upload a book for free from one of these sites.

Hurting people… Hurting careers… Losing the books you want to read.

Stephanie Meyers had part of her new book posted on the internet before it was ever finished. She refused to write the rest of the book and it’s a book people are clamoring for. I know I’d like to read it. But I can understand where she’s coming from. My next book comes out on December 8th. On October 13th, before I was even finished writing the book, there were requests on pirate sites for people to upload a copy of the book. So I guess I have a following, huh? Truthfully, I wanted to vomit. I certainly didn’t want to finish the book. For a week, I didn’t write one word on it. I almost canceled the book.

I didn’t, but you can bet it strengthened my resolve to fight piracy.

If you ever come across a pirate site or books being offered for free, please report it to the publisher of the books or to the authors.

Grrr Argh

Piracy sucks. It really, really sucks. And not in that hot vampire way that I love so much. No, in the 'OH MY GOD WHY ARE PEOPLE STEALING FROM ME AND ACTING LIKE IT'S OKAY?' way.

A few weeks ago I was reduced to tears when I found a site with over 100,000 illegal downloads of my work. Yes, you read that right. It is not a typo. 100,000 downloads. If half of those people had bothered to actually purchase my books I would be able to write full time and wouldn't have to have a day job. (Well, only because I don't make that much at my day job, so those royalties could replace the regular pay check.)

I have never been a fan of illegally downloading. I never had one of those music torrents, I don't like to watch movies before they hit the theater, and I certainly would never steal a book on the internet. But now that I am an author of EBooks I am even less of a fan.

Let me put it this way for you:
When the guy who squirts the ketchup on your burger at the fast food restaurant works, he expects to get paid for it. He is not squirting out of the goodness of his heart. He is not wearing that paper hat as some sort of hobby to alleviate his boredom. It is his job. He does his work and he gets paid for it.

When Vera Wang designs a new dress and sells it on Madison Avenue she expects payment for it. It is a creative work that she labored and worried over. She deserves compensation.

When we write books, it is a job. Let me repeat that for those in the back, IT IS A JOB. We worked hard on these books and we deserve to be paid for them. Just because some asshole has an internet connection does not make him suddenly eligible for all electronic substances. If that were true then I should have full access to everyone's paychecks if they have direct deposit. That money is being transfered via electronic file and therefore should be public property right? Why should I care that someone worked for that money? Pirates don't care that I did.

This is an incredibly sore spot for most of us. It angers and frustrates us because it just seems to be getting worse. More of these sites spring up every day. And we fear going too public about it because it could alert more dishonest people to the fact that they can go steal our work. It's like running into a brick wall over and over again.

Let me clarify that this is not the kind of pirate that is stealing from me. From us. (At least he had better not be. He is a freakin' bazillionaire and has no business stealing. Do you hear me Wynona Ryder? NO BUSINESS!!!) No it's perfectly normal people. I am through thinking that they don't realize it's wrong. Stealing is stealing. The same mothers who are sending their children back to the drug store to return that shoplifted pack of gum are the ones sitting on their laptops reading one of my books that they got for free from a torrent site. They know that stealing is wrong. They know they don't deserve something for nothing. And yet, they steal it anyway. Bastards.

Don't steal books people. The law will eventually catch up with this and I hope the FBI puts all of these people in prison and then makes them pay back all of the money they have stolen from us.

Bastards.

Don't you just love when I stay on topic?

XoXoXo
Dakota Rebel

Piratical Practices

I'm not sure what I should add here as Stephanie has said it most eloquently.

Pirates, grrrr. Good.
Pirates, $$books$$. Bad.

I fear this sum up won't please the owner of this site and I must therefore wax on about the boo-hiss of pirated material. I don't have statistics. I don't have numbers of any sort. What I do know is that sales for all ebook writers are down, dangerously. Books stolen out of the pleasure of reading favorite authors are in fact crippling their favorite authors from writing. If there's no pay involved, there's no reason to think your favorite author can continue to afford writing as a line of work/enjoyment. Both are stripped from her. Neither will she be paid for her efforts, nor does she enjoy the disrespect of being stolen from by those who claim to adore her.

Ergo, her writing ceases and she takes a job at Dairy Queen where minimum wage is more than she currently makes even without piracy, she gets free ice cream, and no one steals her paycheck.

Pirates of the book persuasion are evil. Grrr. Bad.