When, at odd moments during the day, when Roger moved his hand, it blurred. Which caught his attention. He dropped everything to stare at his hand. Waiting for it to come back into focus.
Later, his hand affected his arm, and it too became a bit blurry. And now standing naked before the bathroom mirror, he didn’t see himself. He saw a blur. He reached out toward the blur, but that too turned out to be a blur.
“Honey, come see. I’m out of focus.”
“Again?”
“What do you mean, again?”
Archive for January, 2011
Story – A bit of a blur
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Max Dix, Zero to Six – Telephone Call scene (near end of play)
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Here’s the final video clip from my play “Max Dix, Zero to Six” first produced in 2008. This is the Telephone Call scene as the play nears its end.
See Video Here.
You can see a number of clips from the same play on my video channel: here.
Thanks for dropping by. – Vincent
Story – Ear, nose, love
Friday, January 14th, 2011
Somehow I had sucked a virus into my system that had affected my hearing. It turned voices into a muffled mumbles way in the distance. Sounds became indistinct mysteries. To most everyone who tried speaking toward me, I said, What? a lot.
I was prescribed medicine. Bit by bit I heard the world again, until I stalled at the last 20% of my hearing. Seemed the last 20% was the most difficult to get back. Time and medication. Then, during a movie, I heard a pop and more sound suddenly was there in my ear. Later that week, there were a series of underwater notes, a clearing, and everything seemed back to normal.
But the body, being holistic, with the whole ear, throat, nose combo involved, other mysteries happened.
Because when my hearing kicks in again, my sense of smell kicks up a couple of notches.
Getting out of my car, my head shifts like a dog’s, aiming my nostrils high and slanted. It could also look like a blind person listening to a voice. I sniff.
“Leafs are burning somewhere.”
And they are, a few houses down on the opposite side of the road in someone’s back yard.
I go into a house and there’s a huge bunch of flowers and it overpowers me, a sickly scent like a decrepit person slapping on too much lotion. I have to stand by an open door to get relief.
“Someone’s cutting wood,” I say another time, walking down my street, I eventually pass an open garage where someone has recently buzz-sawed some two by fours.
The world has become wider through my nostrils; I am smelling a lot of things that other people don’t detect.
I even smell things that you aren’t supposed to to be there.
I’m next to the person who is full of love for me. She smiles benignly upon me.
I sniff her.
“What?” she asks, with only a hint of alarm.
“I smell,” I tell her, “I smell something on you.”
“What?”
I sniff. “Love.” I smell her ear. “I smell love on you.”
I smell her throat, bury my nose in her hair, sniffing like a dog wild on the trail of a favorite prey.
She giggles and her love fills my nasal passages, until my insides become like a series of mini-waves, creating the kind of ripples that happen in the middle of a wide lake right after you have thrown your heart in.
Steps needed to take from completed book to publication
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011For those interested in the steps needs to take after a book is completed (as an independent publisher) to get it out into the world, this is it. At least, my steps. And I’m always refining this step-by-step To Do monster….
1. Line edit by professional
2. Cover design
3. Blog & social sites announcements (bi-weekly Facebook Fans — continuing)
4. Produce information sheet – description, size, price, background
5. Begin working on Stories on Stuff – spin-offs (continuing)
6. Record/edit audio book (continuing)
7. Interior layout
8. Break book into pdf chapters for download
9. Register ISBN numbers—print, eBook, Audio
10. Organize Blog tour
11. Submit to printer Lighting Source
12. Submit to various online listings
13. Press Release creation
14. Create videos (continuing)
15. Set-up online: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books, Google Books Partner Program, others
16. Amazon links on Hidden People
17. eBooks upload—Kindle & others
18. Audio distribution
19. Publication Day
20. Announce publications on social sites & email contacts, reviewers, other. (continuing)
21. Buy inexpensive ad on the Kindle Nation newsletter
22. Upload to Completely Novel, BookBuzzer, others.
23. Forward book to reviewers, pre-print copies (continuing)
24. Offer to targeted reading groups, associations, conferences (continuing)
25. Weekly serialized pdfs & audio samples on Blog
26. Announce Online Stories on Stuff tie-in
27. Review Google ads feasibility
2011 begins — some plans & thoughts of things to come
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011FIRST OF ALL: 
I have a short video greetings for 2011 if you want to have a look click here.
NOW.
For those paying attention, all five of you, after serializing Brussegem, a snug hell during the last limping weeks of 2010, I’m looking at this as my publishing schedule for 2011:
THE BOY IN THE SANDWICH (children’s fiction)
HOW TO FIND YOURSELF (illustrated version)
Stories on Stuff (Dot Hippo – kid’s textiles)
THE NICE GUY (first novel)
SLICES (novel on business)
INTIMATE DIALOGUES (short stories)
Stories on Stuff (Polite babies)
THE NEXT GENIUS (Novel on artist)
THE BLUE SPOT IN MY HEAD (Part One in fictionalized trilogy)
Stories on Stuff (3 & 4 – kid’s for Christmas)
“The Boy in the Sandwich” will be presented for the world to lick and look at very shortly. Will be putting some free chapters online on a weekly basis, along with audio clips from the novel.
The comes the new, illustrated version of “How to Find Yourself (or a reasonable facsimile)”.
Maybe a couple of chapters of that, too (again), and me reading some chapters. Also free and weekly.
These two books were supposed to see the light of day toward the end of last year, but things got reshuffled and re-organized. The first “How to” book had to be fully reformatted and laid-out due to errors I wrote about somewhere in this blog during the last year. We can’t have that again, so took time to reorganize the publishing work flow. I thought each book would take three months from finished manuscript to launch, but there’s far too much to do properly; properly takes time. So now I’m aiming at a four month launch of each book, from final period to book available.
And adjust accordingly if that still doesn’t supply enough space & time. See whether I actually keep to the publishing schedule this year….
As I have had occasion to mention: I have well over a decade of experience in international publishing in one of the top three media companies. But it is one thing being part of a system, and being the whole system oneself. So refinement in my hidden people venture was called for. To Get It Right. And no doubt this, like life, will be an on-going process.
Beyond books, next up is a final setting up with audio book distributors as I have three audio books just about done and wanting life. Same with my Stories on Stuff T-shirts and textiles and whatnot spin-offs (with “Boy in the Sandwich” and “How to” coming fully born with illustrations…).
Meanwhile, I’m thinking up stories on t-shirts and for kid’s nightwear. Then I want to make a video, or write a play, or write a 300 word story. So that’s what I do: Whatever Comes Up Next.
Thanks for dropping by and reading. –Vincent
