Alex AMES — Writer, Singer, Songwriter
"Five for forever" has been selected for the month of September in the Amazon Kindle discovery books promotion! It will be available for 1.99 USD throughout the month. Hopefully this will give "54F" the exposure it deserves.
The promotion starts on the dot on September 1st.
Tonight marks the next milestone for T3 - the third Troubleshooter installment, called "Troubleseeker". When I write or edit, I mark each open issue with an "xxx". This marks everything from missing descriptions ("xxx What does Irene wear?"), clarifications ("xxx MI5 or MI6?"), or plot-points to be picked up ("xxx add earlier scene about threat"). Especially in first drafts I might dispense "xxx" remarks by the dozen whenever I am too lazy or too immersed in my writing.
During editing passes one and two, most "xxx" items get taken care of. But at the end of edit pass two there will always be twenty to thirty more persistent items left over. Because they require a bit of deeper research which I avoided to do during concentrated writing or editing. E.g. "xxx what model is the helicopter?" requires a check into what helicopter types are used by the Royal Air Force to transport people from A to B.. Or because the issues require another dive into creativity because the story structure is weak or complete new scenes are needed.
In the most cases, I simply delete the xxx comment after I am done, as it makes no sense to keep them. But in other situations I keep them. I might pose a question in my remarks "xxx Shouldn't Tom discover the identity of the baby instead of Burton?". To answer, I leave the comment, just re-labelled as "yyy" or "nnn" which stands for Yes or No.
But now it is done. The last "xxx" has been eradicated from the Troubleseeker manuscript! Now it is back to edit pass three. By end of August I should be able to pass it over to the editing service for the language, grammar and typo check.
PS: in case you are wondering: I am working on a German Mac. German lesson of the day: "Suchergebnis" = "Search Result"
Amazon has this concept of author rank. According to Amazon definition it summarizes all your cross book sales and pitches you against the rest of the world. With Kindle Press-driven promotion for "Five", I had for the first time taken a systematic regular look at my own rank. Talking about modest, have a look at my ranking from the last half year. It reflects nicely my activities around the two books I published this year "Five for forever" and "Pieces of Trouble".
What do we see? February and March spikes are easy to explain. I had bought some gift copies (10 each)of my books via Createspace, that probably was the large May peak that brought me into the 100.000 for the frist time. The other earlier peaks were the typical 1-2 copies per month per book. There appears to be an interesting calculation method in place that catapults you up at a purchase but then uses some moving average to the end, which explains the right-heaviness of the distribution of each peak.
Then mid-June things became serious with Five for forever on Kindle Press and the parallel promotion on Amazon. Basically what they did is that they added my book to the various recommendation results that you typically see.
The peak was July 5th, seems there were a lot of bored people in the US Independence Day, and bought something good to read. I made it up to Author rank 27.503. This probably does not yet bring me up to ranks with Stephen King or Frederick Forsyth. But next book, next goal! Crack the four figures.
PS: Just a plug for Wattpad's "A Brilliant Plan" - the next chapters are online.
In the middle of the second editing pass of Troubleseeker, my third Troubleshooter installment. The house is quiet, kids and wife in bed sleeping, night has fallen. Moody light to keep visual distraction low.
Recognize the London Eye and Big Ben?
On the iTunes rotation I had some prefab Beatles playlist from Apple Music under the curated topic "Beatles at Night". Was a good one, many deep cuts like "Mr. Moonlight", "I'll be back", or the fantastic "Long long long". After that I opened up the Radiohead page and simply pressed the random button. The hypnotic quality helps in the humdrum task to rewrite, root out my xxx's from within the text, and spot logical errors.
In the first pass writing process, I am neither patient with detailed descriptions, especially not of rooms or surroundings. For me, the flow of the story is everything at this point, mundane things like description, continuity, or character management goes to the background. So in order to keep the writing going, I simply type 'xxx' in the text to indicate that there is something missing. Sometimes labelled with what I think is missing 'xxxDescribeMan' would be a typical xxx entry.
Then either before or after the first edit pass, I'll use the global search function and bring up the list of xxx. One after one needs attention. Not a task I prefer, as it is a very mechanical and time consuming, making details up, balancing description and action flow, assuring continuity, doing research on topics. (Like just now: how many rounds do fit into a Beretta 71 Jaguar?)
So for this sort of work, I need intelligent background music, Radiohead fits this category exactly. And with so many years and albums under their belt, the number of songs is exhaustive.
I tinkered with some cover ideas for Troubleseeker. A sniper scope is a must have, dito is a London sights silhouette like London Eye, St. Pauls, and Westminster. So it might look something like this:
A quick first draft...
After about half a year, my Troubleshooter story collection "Pieces of Trouble" found it's first paying customer. That of course is special, though I bet it does not really increase my Amazon author rank much.
What is also special is that the meta-publisher Pronoun send me an alert with some tips and tricks what to do now. E.g. just this, posting a blog post or twitter about the occasion. Done that.
While I rode the train home today I thought about some follow up stories from the Troubleshooter universe, and actually came up with one story. Maybe I'll work on it during commute when I am sick of editing T3 (Troubleshooter Book 3). Working title is 'Boy Trouble' and it will pick up on a storyline that is mentioned in one sentence in the unreleased T3 book. Paul mentions to his (female) sidekick that he was in progress dating a neighborhood girl. 'Boy Trouble' will describe the building of the relationship with the plotline that there is a violent boyfriend of some sort in her background. Who of course will learn that Paul Trouble is not just a one handed accountant. One twist will see that Paul attempts to hide his 'persuasion' skills from his girlfriend. I probably will keep the story open ended, whether the girl finds out or not.
Together with a sort of "Paul Trouble, kindergarten cop" story, that's already two more novellas as the basic stock for a second novella collection. But that's probably two years out until I've penned those!
Hey, whoever bought the book: enjoy it. And hey, whoever did not buy the book, yet, login to Amazon and start buying!!! Print or digital, I don't care as long as you buy!
I can start splurging now.
Five for Forever is out for a few days now. Here is a little goodie, an exclusive deleted scene from the book (I had the luxury problem of too many words and ideas for the book and a lot of scenes and characters had to go over the course of the editing process). But there is no real delete in the digital universe, just a shift of bytes from one storage to another.
The scene you are about to read was about one third into the book, when Rick and Louise hit it off together and their relationship became official. Rick's parents are living in Florida, so about as far away as possible from San Diego, his mother already a little hard of hearing and not at full capacity anymore to grasp whom her son is dating. But see for yourself.
One little additional tidbit: Five for Forever is a homage to Notting Hill, the great romantic comedy with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Incidentally, there is a deleted scene in the script where Hugh's characters eats dinner with his parents and breaks the dating news to them. The priceless reaction: none. Total anti-climax.
So, here it is. Enjoy the chapter/scene:
Rick
Rick called up his mother. His parents were living in a Florida retirement home close to Fort Myers. Both were getting in worse shape every year, his father on the bad end with setting in of dementia and various diseases that kept him to bed most of the time. His mother had become frail and hard of hearing which made long-distance communication sometimes a challenge.
“Hi Mom, it’s Rick.”
“Hi Rickie, is that really you?” His mother was the only person in the world still calling him Rickie.
“Yes mom, the secret word is ‘soap’.” They had agreed on a code word so that his mom was able to separate true relatives from the con artists.
“Not that I don’t trust you, but I need to check. Give me a minute. ‘Soap’ you said? Correct. You are my flesh and blood. I hope in better shape than I am. My arthritis is killing me, despite the new drugs Doc Goldstein prescribed me.”
“How is Dad?” Rick asked.
“Getting worse. They are paying good attention to him but I am not sure whether I should be happy or sad. Happy to be in good hands and sad to see him slip away not knowing where he is and who is around him. But enough of that, it drags me down! What’s new on the West Coast, Rickie?”
“I wanted to tell you that I am in a new relationship.”
“With a girl?”
“Mom, I did not turn gay overnight.”
“You never know these days, I read a lot. Even Elton John was married once to a girl. Is she nice? From a good family?” His mother always had been impressed that Isabella had come from a good family, which meant pedigree and old money. In Bella’s family case it had been pedigree, one of the first families from Denmark to settle in the West US, no money left from former gold rush days.
“Not really, but you know her, too. It’s actress Louise Waters.”
“Lorrie Anders? Wasn’t she in your class?”
“No, Louise Waters, the actress.”
“Oh, she looks like Louise Waters, I know her, the actress. Nice. Good hair. White teeth. Thin, but nice.”
“No, mom, I tell you, she is the real deal. She is Louise Waters.”
“Silly me, Rickie, I don’t seem to get it. She looks like Louise Waters or not? Why don’t you send me a photo of her?”
“You can Google... Never mind, mom, I’ll send you a photo.”
“And the kids like her, too?”
“Yes, they adore her. They repeatedly had asked me to kiss her much earlier than I would have dared.”
“My grandkids are wise, they got that from me. I am happy for you. And for her as well...”
Rick dutifully sent his mom a family snapshot of Louise and him, kids left and right and everywhere. “Did you receive the snapshot?” Rick asked her at their next phone call.
“Yes Rickie, so sweet. And you were right, she really looks like Louise Waters. And what’s her name again?”
“It’s Louise.”
“Oh, she is also called Louise? Isn’t that a coincidence! What was her last name again?”
“Waters. Louise Waters. Mom, she *is* Louise Waters!”
“Really? No! The actress?”
“In person!”
“You’re not making this up to impress your old mother?”
“Never would!” Rick promised.
“Hm. Let me check. No, it’s not April 1st. These days go by so fast, you never notice. And the code word was correct, too. So you are my son and your new girl is Louise Waters, the actress. Honey, that boggles my mind. But… Hang on!” She rustled and bustled in the background. “How come I haven’t read anything about you and her in the gazettes?” Rick could hear her turning the pages. “In this weeks edition of *People’s* there was something about her. Yes, here! Rickie, don’t trust this woman! Here, on page eight, a picture. She is on a beach, arm in arm with this other actor. Josh Hancock, both in tight beachwear. Man, they must have Photoshopped that package of Josh and Louise’s boobs, too…”
“Mom, too much information!
“Since when has youth become so conservative? Never mind! Listen to this caption: *Dream team! Break from work? Or more than that?* So how can she be with you at the same time?”
“Mom, that had been a publicity shot for pre-marketing of their newest movie that is still in production. I know Josh, too, he is my client. I restore a boat for him. This is how I had met Louise in the first place. He is definitely not with Louise.”
“Josh Hancock a client? This is over my head.”
“Should she drop by so that you can talk to her in person?”
“Your Dad would get a heart attack. On the other hand, he wouldn’t remember her movies anyway. I won’t tell him about Louise! Is she rich?”
“What does that have to do with anything, Mom?”
“That’s relationship trouble brewing right there, Rickie. A man should be the income provider, that fits his thinking and her biology.”
“In our specific case our income gap could only be equalized if the Communist Party took over Congress, Senate, and the White House. Louise’s wealth is over hundred million dollars whereas my riches are a house with mortgage, a sailboat, four kids before college, and a dead mouse in the pool,.”
“You need money, Rickie?”
“No Mom, I have a rich girlfriend now.”
“Help me! My son has become a Gigolo!”
“Mom!”
“Isn’t an old lady allow to crack a joke about her son?”