What's up? That's on!

Long time no post on this site but I took it easy recently. As I replaced a 30 minute train commute (each way, very productive) by an eBike ride (60 minutes each way, sporty, but not productive). So I am missing 60 minutes a day in text production. Plus, the weather is fantastic currently and my evenings are shorter, too. And vacations...

Sounds like a lot of excuses NOT to write. But I am busy. Teen Vampire Hunters, the second installment of my Teen Monster Hunters series, is coming along well and I am in rework mode. The timing, characters and overall story line is fine, just some structural optimization. Followed by two more reviews. Hopefully I'll have that all behind me by end of August, to send it off to the editor. And finally start writing again. 

Next book is still a bit up in the air. I've had some motivation to pick up my second romantic comedy again, a piece I left off at about 80 % because I was unhappy with some of my characters. It's hard these days to write good romantic comedy where your characters are female, and professionally successful, but still you are required to have your heroines fall in love with hanging tongues. The second option is to continue with my science fiction horror action thriller, working title "The Transport". Also maybe in  state of 50 %, but needs a lot of rewrite to differentiate itself from the Teen Monster Hunters. (plays in high school, aliens in the basement, sounds familiar).

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Facebook Memories...

Read this article in the New York Times about the FaceBook function that let's you download what FB has stored from you. Thought I'd give it a spin for my private life account, too. 

An interesting feeling. Seeing your life spread out on the screen in neat little packages. Of course it is not my complete life. It is not like a diary that follows your emotions, encounters and places in a much more detailed fashion. This is FB, the snapshot of a digital social life of things, events, places and chats between people who you feel connected to in a special digital way. You browse through the different categories that FB provides, a life sorted in neat little drawers. A glimpse here, a recognition there. And many times, pure blanks. After reading through that social stream of concience, we should be posting more. Much! MUCH! MORE!

“50+ Singles - Meet someone special today! ”

— Timeline Screenshot of an Email received December 2016

What a perfectly targeted mail. I am 50+. I am not single, but I presume this shows the true spirit of dating sites...

“One word posting: “Huh?””

— A photo of a signpost on a boring green lawn "Creative Green - Gardening and Landscaping"

The timeline, an endless stream of one sentence exchanges with mostly people you don't have regular contact anymore. Most of them around our birthdays. At first (2008 as the earliest entry) text only, later enriched with emojis. 

“Is catching up on admin stuff to go into vacations”

— December 2008

“Is holding hands with a baby that refuses to go to sleep”

— January 2009

“Strängest of experiences: 31 degrees, Christmas decoration, Tarantino movie about Nazis”

— November 2009 (from Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Interesting, too: the list of friends and when you befriended them. Last new friend: already a year ago, the graphic designer Anna for my Teen Monster Hunter cover. Is Facebook dead? Or just social friendships? First friend ever: Markus from Switzerland April 2008.

Even more interesting: declined friend requests. Some colleagues who are fitting for LinkedIn but not for FB. Some complete unknowns, the most obscure one: 毛华军  (November 2014)

“Had to press the “Like” button because there was no “Fear” button available.”

— January 2011 (after watching a video of an MIT robo dog jumping over a fence)

“Finished my Steve Jobs tribute evening - thanks to all Youtube contributors to enable us to remember a great man evolve from 1978 (hilarious video filmed before Steve’s first TV appearance, inquiring the way to the restroom) over the years through Apple, Next and Pixar to the latest and greatest achievements. Hearing the startup sound of my first Apple Macintosh Classic which I had bought from one of my first salaries is still burnt into my brain.”

— October 2011 on the evening of Steve Jobs passing

“Gave up watching a dreadful movie (Get Smart)”

— February 2009

How can a movie with Ann Hathaway be dreadful? Probably Steve Carell! 

“101 useful iPhone tips - #34: Today in the office we suspected that the refrigerator light switch was broken so that the light was on constantly even when the door was closed. There is an app for that: switch on the video camera, put the iPhone into the fridge and close the door (for a second or so!).”

— Message posting June 2012

“I’ve traveled to 89 cities in 18 countries. How about you?”

— October 2012

There are even outstanding requests that I sent to people who never answered, oldest from 9 years ago!

Some categories in the friendship section are completely obscure:
"Followee" - a section that includes WTF: Mark Zuckerberg? The Mark Zuckerberg?
"Friend Peer Group" - Established Adult Life 

"Established Adult Life" - Whut? WTF is this? Opposite to "Aimless Youth Party"? Or "Winding down retiree tiredness"?

“Santa Fe, a song by Beirut on Spotify.”

— August 2012 (after linking Spotify to Facebook)

“Jet lag compensation Starbucks visit. Local 21:30 equals 2:30 home equals a blinking 0:00 internal clock.”

— March 2014 with the status: Alex is feeling tired at Princeton University

“Am I stuck in the 90ies if I still like Jerry Seinfeld?”

— June 2014 (after watching my first episode of Comedians in Cars...)

“Can’t stop. Won’t stop. I covered some serious distance. Map your runs with Nike+.
4.29-mi run”

— May 2015 (Autobot message from my Nike+ App into FB)

“4 upcoming tour dates:
Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Green Day, Death Cab for Cutie”

— November 2015 (Autobot message from one of my apps, maybe Bandsintown?)

Frank Sinatra? 2015? Really? Zombie time?

Advertising topics selected for me:

• Bavaria,
• The Police,
• Food truck
• Compliation Album (I hate! compliation albums)
• Fast food  (Man, that cinches it together with "Food truck")
• Pro-Ject  (sic!)  No idea, what is this? A pro-duct of sorts?
• States of Germany  (Was facebook even around before 1989?)
• David Grohl
• Madchester
• American Folk Music

“Estimated location inferred from IP 48.36, 10.848
Created: Wednesday, April 11, 2018 at 12:37pm UTC+02
IP Address: 89.204.135.179”

— Security log entry from today

The security logs show each and every IP address, MAC address plus some attempt of geolocation. BTW: The geolocation shown in the example was more than 1 mile away from my actual location that day.

List of Applications (excerpt):

• frents - the social library - No idea. Sound early 2000, judging from the clever name
• tape.tv - Ah, the now defunct service that helped me discover some beautiful bands
• iPhoto - Ah, iPhoto, RIP.
• Shpock - not even by name I have an idea what this was.
• Music Glue
• Lookfantastic  - one of these complete unknown applications! No recollection of "linking" this one

Die Monsterjäger - German translation of Teen Monster Hunters is out!

The eBook version of the German translation of Teen Monster Hunters is out! The print version to follow soon—actually it's generating as I write this on the new KDP print publishing feature that maybe will replace Createspace for me. 

That was a long month of translating, writing, formatting and contemplating. With the birthday of my youngest kid looming, I had the self set deadline to finish the German translation of Teen Monster Hunters. With five days to go, it might still work out. 

It had been an interesting experience translating your own work from your first (and favorite) writing language into your mother tongue (there will be a separate post about this). The crazy thing is: it took me as long translating and editing the translation as it did me writing the English original. Four week had been the plan. And actually the first translation took me the whole of December, about four weeks. But guess what: fine tuning a story your mother language took me another six weeks! It had been a learning experience, but I am not sure that I want to repeat it. Those 10 weeks could have been a new book!

Teen Monster Hunters republishing

That was another long hiatus from blogging / socializing. I spent a while translating Teen Monster Hunters, which led to some rephrasings and corrections on the English version, too. As my previous publisher closed shop a few days ago, I relaunched the eBook once more. And so it goes into Kindle Direct first for the next three months, should be up and running in a few days. Next update is the print version.

All About Eve...

Writing like crazy on three items at the same time. And then, as if there was nothing better to do, I would stumble tonight on the TV over "All About Eve". It had been a while since I last saw that one and I was immediately riveted again. Witty dialogues, wonderfully atmospheric, carefully staged and incredible cast. I am usually not a nostalgic, but 'they don't make movies like that anymore!'

Wikipedia "All About Eve" under Fair Use Policy

So what is going these days? My rom-com chick lit start-up novel got the treatment a second round. I put in a lot of work in order to complete and edit and then decided to stop once more. The story is good, but not good enough yet. There are three women who in the course of the story will fall in love with three men. That is the easy part. But I have not figured out yet how to make the three fall-in-love cases unique. So far all three cases are pretty much the same. The male is the dominant one, making the female realize that her way is the wrong way and that she should put trust in steady relationship. Once is fine. Two maybe with a little variation acceptable. But three in one book in one fifth act is too much. As I ran out of ideas and lack the right tactic, I decided to shelf the book for now. 

What happens in the meanwhile? The next Teen Monster Hunter novel is in the making. Teen Vampire Hunters is going well, I am not measuring yet, but all chapters are defined and in place, so it is all a matter of writing and sticking to the formul. The first Teen Monster Hunters book was indeed the first one, introducing the main characters and the story format. But Teen Vampire Hunters will be the first one out of the regular story stack that will be sequence agnostic, meaning: you can read them in any order you like. There will be no overlap and no development that makes it necessary to stick to a sequence. All in "the formula". 

And then there is the German translation of "Teen Monster Hunters". Mostly to the benefit of my youngest son and his school peers. One of my books is always an appreciated gift or token, so the German version will go well with the locls. And maybe gives me opportunity to organize a reading one of these days, locally.