Tag Archives: Alice in Wonderland

Rambling Thoughts on a Winter’s Day…

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The internet is old enough now to be new all over again. Ten years ago, “hyperlinks” were all the rage for how to get your website ranked higher in the search engines. Popular sites “recommend” other popular sites by exchanging links with them to produce higher browser rankings for both. Think of it as word-of-mouth advertising with an “e” on the front end or as the geneses of Facebook’s “Like.” Well, links are back in vogue again. Apple, Google and Microsoft make the browsers we all use to surf the web, and they battle each other with light sabers and dark forces for supremacy in this market. Shaking up the sequence algorithm – that’s the crunch and grind of data that decides who gets to be Number 1 – keeps the internet fresh. That’s a good thing because of how large and vast the beast is today, but it does make for more work at the individual website level…

One of the nicest things about running your own business is you get to set the schedule. Running a small business means you are never without something to put on that schedule, and January is one of those months when a lot of things come due. January is the time to compare and to project, too, and maybe make a few resolutions. In the online advertising business, it’s about keeping my clients ahead of the pack, or at least within their budget…

In the novel writing business, it’s hibernation time for me. The fingers are quiet but the mind is still churning out plotlines, ideas that need to ferment in the gray matter a while longer. It’s time to find an agent and a publisher, and I can’t wait to see what Jenna Jinks comes up with for cover art for Broken String, but there is nothing else I can do for the novel itself at this point. I bought the Writer’s Digest’s 2016 Guide to Literary Agents. The book-buying landscape has changed drastically since The Freya Project was published twelve years ago and there’s a lot to absorb inside the Guide’s 330 pages…

Funny thing, the first words you read on the cover are about how to register online to take full advantage of their free, one-year online membership that came with the purchase of this book about how to get your book into print…

When I published Seoul Legacy, The Orphans Flu in the summer of 2012, self-publishing did not have the respectability or acceptability it has today. Fifty Shades of Grey was barely fifty days old. Today, we have Kickstarter.com as one way of funding a novel, and I speak from first person experience when I tell you it can work. The Alice’s Adventures Under Ground Project was an overwhelming success and a class-act to boot. When my printed copy arrived, well before the promised date of Christmas, the first thing I unpacked from the box was a pair of white gloves. They were cheap knockoffs to what the British Library Historian might wear while handling the original Alice, but what a perfect gift for a facsimile book! That’s classy stuff for a classic story. What could I include with Broken String? Something outstanding yet inexpensive? Good ideas gladly accepted here…

February is a leap month this year… What are you going to do with your extra day?

Read On!

-Phil

November can be Tough

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Things always seem to go to hell in November. But first, an update on Alice. The 150th Anniversary Edition of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground is due to be released in book format on 11/22 (yesterday), but I received my e-book version of the story last week and was delighted. The quality is excellent. They kept to the original, hand-written format with the drawing around the text, which cannot be enlarged on an e-reader, like a normal typeset document can. It worked perfectly on my “iBooks” app and was easy to read in portrait mode. Charles Dodgson’s original tale differs greatly from the commercial version of Alice in Wonderland. For one thing, there is no Mad Hatter in the Under Ground version, and the ending is… well, I won’t spoil the plot — for fear the Queen of Hearts will point at me and shout off with his head!

Broken String is back from my two editors and all of their comments and corrections are in. The final edit trims to 111,200 words. That, from 122,800 in first draft, or about nine percent. I don’t know what that means, but I’m a nut for statistics.

Artist Jeanna Jinks of Wake Forest, North Carolina, is doing a cover art example for Broken String. If you are not familiar with her works, drop by her online studio, JinksStudio.com. Jeanna’s paintings are captivating and I’m anxious to see what she comes up with.

In other news, I can now add Manservant to my resume. I have Mo home recovering from foot surgery she had on Veteran’s Day. One of the hazards of being a nurse is that you are on your feet all day. Her employer gave her eight weeks to recover, which is great for her and not so much for me. I am writing this the day after her surgery. For the first five days of recovery, Mo will spend 55 minutes of every hour with her foot “up” and five minutes walking. Early mornings and late nights, I’m up and down the stairs refilling the ice bag that keeps the swelling down. She tells me I’m a dear. I’m trying to get my lap time under two minutes.

Starting day-six, Mo will only need to spend 40 minutes an hour with her foot up. It’s her left foot, so she can drive on her own after that. She has a temporary handicap parking sticker but you can bet dear will be driving Miss Mo around more than she’ll be taking herself places. Thanksgiving and Christmas fall during her recovery period.

This should be fun, and I say that with tongue fully extended from cheek.

Normally, it’s just me and the dogs during the day, and they’re usually asleep. Mo and Ben are off working and I don’t turn on the radio or television while working online or writing. I like quiet, find it more soothing than any music. The perfect background for thought. But right now, I can hear the living room television playing some TV serial Mo’s recorded in advance, in anticipation of binge watching away the tough months of November and December… Note to self; get Mo headphones for Christmas, give them to her way early.

I say this in jest, of course. Mo knows my sour sense of humor, she even encourages me when it’s aimed at others. I’ve no doubt she’ll run to grab a stick when she sees the piñata that looks like her ice bag.