Caroline Miller Write Away

A new home for Caroline Miller Write Away

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:29:00 -0700

Hello, friends!

I’m in the process of tweaking a new website.. but a new version of Caroline Miller Write Away is ready to go.

Beginning Monday, June 2, you’ll be able to see new content at a new address:

http://booksbycarolinemiller.com/blog/

Take a look! Tell me what you think.

Nothing further will appear on this site.

I’m focusing my Internet presence with a new look and better features for sharing ideas on writing, publishing, life.

I’m excited about this.. and I hope you’ll feel the same way.

-Caroline

June 28, 2012

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:44:59 -0700

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION

According to book promoters, now is the time for all good men and women to go to a book fair. The sun is shining, the weekend stretches ahead like a desert highway under a clear blue sky. Monday seems eons away. Yet as a writer, I’ve never participated in a book fair and never plan to.

Why? First, I refuse to buy my books so that I can turn around and sell them to the public. Nor will I spend a day or two sitting at a card table hoping to sell enough books to cover my entrance fee which is never cheap. To be honest, book fairs raise money for the promoters and not for the writers who sit hours in the sun living on hope.

(courtesy: time.com)

Art fairs are different from book fairs because people can look at pots or paintings or pairs of earrings and know whether or not they like the product. It’s difficult to judge a book by its cover. People tend to buy books based upon a friend’s recommendation or a noted book critic or because they’ve read another work by the same author. People don’t usually leap at the chance to fork over money to an unknown author.

My advice to a writer like me who is trying to build an audience: don’t pay $50 for a table at a book fair. Use the money to buy postage and mail your book to book bloggers. They might give your work a review and if they do, you can use their endorsements for promotions. You might also manage a sale or two because of what they write.

June 27, 2012

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:58:10 -0700

THE GENETIC CODE – ANOTHER TALE OF MYSTERY

Shakespeare got it right, again. Our fate lies not in our stars but in ourselves.The new book by Jonathan Haidt, “The Righteous Mind,” discusses the latest findings in brain research. Genes, it appears, contribute to every aspect of our personalities and several genes make the difference between liberal and conservative thinkers. (“Why You Vote the Way You do,” excerpted in “This Week” 6/1/12,) The center of the differences relate to:

“…the function of neurotransmitters, particularly glutamate and serotonin, both of which are involved in the brain’s response to threat and fear.” (Haidt pg. 40)

Conservatives, apparently, react more strongly than liberals to signs of danger. Liberals react more strongly to novelty. A second difference is found in “characteristic adaptations.”

These are traits that emerge as we grow… [and} are called adaptations because people develop them in response to the specific environments and challenges that they happen to face. (Haidt pg. 40)

(courtesy: ethicsconsultation.net)

In sum, genes are what Haidt calls the “first draft” of the mind and then environment leads us down different life experiences to different moral subcultures. That morality binds us into ideological teams with different world views is not new information. That genes are the source of these divisions is.

What Haidt wants us to remember is that good people reside on either side of the genetic code.

June 26, 2012

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:28:34 -0700

SECRET ROOMS

The other day, I shared an article with a friend who is interested in lucid dreaming: the ability to take over our dreams and create adventures while we are asleep. According to recent research, people who manage lucid dreaming best are those who play video games. (“5 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams” by Jennie Bryner, “Yahoo News,” 4/28/12)

I’ve managed lucid dreams a few times even though I don’t play video games. The trick is to notice a detail in a dream that contradicts reality. The anomaly triggers an understanding that I’m in a lucid dream and free to soar above the clouds.

(courtesy: dreamviews.com)

I don’t work at the skill as I prefer not to control my dreams. I use them to invite communication with my unconscious. Sometimes I’m treated to wonderful stories, as in the case of “Marie Eau-Claire,” the novelette I published in the May issue of “The Colored Lens.”

Collaborating with my dreams may sound eerie, but I consider it an important device for unlocking impressions lost to my conscious mind. I never write from a plot outline and when I begin, I seldom know how the story will end. Only when I read the finished copy do I begin to see themes or symbols put there by the unconscious. I call it Ouija boarding — a hunt for images I’ve been collecting over the years.

A conscious mind remembers only fragments of its experiences. The rest sinks below the surface of memory. If I had to side with only one psychologist’s view of the psyche, I’d side with Jung’s. The unconscious is the mystical portion of the brain. Left unfettered, it provides dreams that can lead to wondrous, secret rooms.

June 25, 2012

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:50:51 -0700

THINK LIBERAL

I came across three articles with advice that seemed to move in opposite directions, recently. Two were reprints on Facebook. The first was about the trend among college students to view education as a pragmatic means to an end: good paying jobs. The second article centered on the academics who bemoaned this drift. College, they argued, was intended to expose young minds to ideas that were foreign and challenging.

The third article threw a monkey wrench into the thinking of the young people. Author, Norman Matloff, warns against becoming too practical. Students who imagine their skills will provide them a lifetime of juicy salaries, particularly in the tech industry, he says are wrong. To make his point, he quotes Intel executive, Craig Barrett, who observed that “the half-life of an engineer, software or hardware, is only a few years.” (“The Week”. 3/4/12) Even Mark Zuckerberg, Matloff points out, tends to hire tech people fresh out of college rather than reward depth of experience. One reason is that government regulation H-1B allows foreign coders to be hired for less money than American workers.

(courtesy: blog.openstudy.com)

Matloff closes with a quote from another Intel executive:

“If you choose a software-engineering career, just keep in mind that you could end up working for one of those lowly humanities majors someday.” (“The Week,” pg. 39)

Apparently, being a generalists rather than a specialist may be the better choice after all… Did I just hear my philosophy professors chortling?

June 22, 2012

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:03:18 -0700

SEVEN REASONS WHY I DON’T READ WRITERS’ DIGEST

A friend who reads my blog posts advised me recently that my scribblings would make a great memoir. She sent me an article from WritersDigest.com: “Seven Tips for Turning Your Blog into a Book.”

Frankly, I haven’t read “Writers’ Digest” in years because, at the time, much of the information struck me as vacuous — a little razzle-dazzle like the dancing girls outside the circus tent that contains the bearded lady.

(courtesy: art.com)

Articles promising to reveal vital information usually don’t. They generally tend to be teasers for a workshop, a book or a video that the reader must purchase to get the inside story. To be blunt, no one is giving away gold nuggets for the price of a magazine. The article my friend sent me is a classic example of a come-on, the information being as vital as last week’s horse racing sheet. Below are the seven secrets the author shared on how to turn blog posts into a book.

1. Pick a unique angle for your book. (Translation: Have an interesting topic or theme.)

2. Create a content plan for your book. (Translation. Have a beginning, middle and end.)

3. Mine your blog for posts that fit the content. (Translation: feel free to put your posts in your blog book.)

4. Blog your missing content. (Translation: I have no idea what this advises unless it means make something up to fill in any gaps.)

5. Edit you manuscript prior to going to print. (Translation: learn how to spell and punctuate.)

6. Entice publishers and readers with your unpublished work. (Translations: I haven’t a clue how to do this and the author isn’t telling.)

7. Blog your next book. (Translation: If you have any leftover posts, write another book.)

If reading the above advice proves useful, feel free to send me a check. But, please, please… please… don’t send me a subscription to Writer’s Digest.

June 21, 2012

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:51:09 -0700

WHEN LUCK HAPPENS

A caring friend recently sent me a website that offered tutorials on how to market my books. The first in the series was how to raise one’s ranking for Amazon book sales. All of the tutorials came with a price tag, naturally.

I’ve seen this type of promotion too many times to sit quietly any longer. And frankly, focusing on one’s standing on Amazon is getting the cart before the horse. Most book buyers don’t even know what the rankings mean and neither do many of the authors. What sells a book is word-of-mouth, one friend recommending a title to another. What’s more marketing advice is available for free at the library.

The majority of these books and tutorials are pitched to new writers and, in my opinion, are meant more to part the author from his money than to help. What’s more, even good advice quickly becomes stale. If everyone is using the same strategy, eventually it fails. By the time that strategy gets printed in to books or taped, you can be pretty sure it’s worn out. Stale wine in new bottles.

(courtesy: webstockpro.com)

The more I’m in this writing game, the less I believe in a winning strategy. Having talent and skill are a prerequisite to writing but that won’t insure success. Success is so often a matter of luck, like a YouTube video that for some reason goes viral. Dan Brown wrote good books for many years but languished in the shadows of the midlist shelf. Not till he wrote “The da Vinci Code” which angered the Catholic Church did his book stir up enough controversy to make the author famous. Lucky him.

My advice to beginning authors is to write because you have to. Write because you enjoy it. These are rewards in themselves. If luck comes, be grateful. But as to success, I know of no magic formula for obtaining it. If I did, I’d share it with you. By then, however, it would probably have gone stale.

June 20, 2012

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 23:19:54 -0700

HISTORY, THE GRAVEDIGGER’S FRIEND

There’s a new work out on Helen Keller, written by Rosie Sultan. It’s a fictional biography, “Helen in Love,” which speculates on the nature of real characters, Helen and Peter Fagan, the young man who served as her secretary for a time. Sultan admits nothing is known about the pair, except that they were close. At Helen’s behest, all correspondence between the two was burned after her death.

An excerpt of this new book appeared in the May edition of “Good Housekeeping” and I give Sultan highest marks for capturing the way a woman who is deaf and blind might express her feelings. Still, I question the ethics of such a novel. William Safire wrote a fictional history of the Civil War, but he had plenty of documentation from which to build his famous characters. Stacy Schiff’s depiction of Cleopatra was born not on the Egyptian queen’s records but from the comments of her enemies and those of later historians. Sultan, however, has not even a thumbtack upon which to hang her narrative. She speculates on a romance because she can, there being no records to confirm or deny.

This story about a deaf and blind girl gets its audience because Helen is real and admired worldwide. Sultan piggybacks upon that fame. She’s not the first to have done so. Jane Austin and Beatrix Potter have been used in the same fashion for a series of detective novels.

(courtesy: 20th Century Fox)

Even Abraham Lincoln has not escaped revisionists. He is now the pivotal character in a vampire story. Pure fiction again, but it sells because of name familiarity.

Mark Twain attempted to protect himself by laying a curse upon opportunists who “played” with his work after his death. I agree with Twain. These shenanigans strike me as a form of grave robbing.

June 19, 2012

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:57:34 -0700

ANOTHER ETHICAL DILEMMA

April 10 of this year I wrote a blog post about the ethics of piggybacking my work on to the sites of other authors. Some would call it marketing. Others would call it opportunism.

My virtual book tour has given me a new set of questions. Followers have begun to drop into my Twitter page. I didn’t know these people, but they’ve reached out to me, and so I click the box that links my page to theirs. It’s a courtesy, I suppose. But do I have an obligation to them beyond my acknowledgement?

(courtesy: pinkchalkstudio.com)

It’s no secret that most writers create blogs, join social networks and Twitter as a marketing tool. I’ve done the same, though I’ve become fond of my virtual friends and wouldn’t care to part with their wit and insights.

Despite the benefits I’ve derived, I’ve been slow to grow my contacts. Following the lives of 140 people is an awesome task and now more are arriving through Twitter. What is my obligation to them?

One bright spot exists, of course. I’m not J.K. Rowling. Keeping up with followers will probably never become overwhelming.

June 18, 2012

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 07:03:14 -0700

AN ORDINARY DAY THAT SURPRISES

I finished my work early yesterday and as it was a sunny afternoon, I walked to one of my neighborhood bookstores. The stroll was pleasant but long, so midway I stopped to rest on a stone bench near a curbing. A large, gray cat leapt up to join me and rubbed its fur against my arm, innocent of the knowledge that I am allergic to cat dander. I offered no protest and for a time we sat together while I listened to its quiet purring.

(courtesy: animalcentury.com)

Eventually, I said goodbye to the cat and moved on.

Nearer my leafy destination, I came upon a kiosk in a yard. It contained copies of a poem and thinking it was the work of the homeowner, I took a sheaf to read. I was wrong about the author. The piece was by E. E. Cummings. He can be devilishly clever with words. Even the mention of his name will raise a smile. But this poem was of a different sort, though still joyous and capable curling my lips into a bow. A perfect poem for a perfect day.

I will wade out

till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers

I will take the sun in my mouth

and leap into the ripe air

Alive

with closed eyes… (from “I Will Wade Out” by E.E. Cummings)

June 15, 2012

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 22:57:25 -0700

A WORD ABOUT BOOK BLOGGERS

Like the number of ice cream flavors that exist, book bloggers write for any number of reasons. Obviously, they enjoy reading but many are writers and use their blogs to develop an audience. They differ, too, in ages, ranging from retirees to frenzied mothers or students diverting themselves from their studies.

(courtesy: fanpop.com)

Book bloggers receive free books in exchange for their reviews. And, If a blogger has sufficient following, he can be choosey. Recently, I approached one with several thousand followers for my book, “Gothic Spring.” What I received was a canned rejection in reply. Only agented books were considered the e-mail informed me. So there it is. Another set of hurdles for beginning writers to stumble over. Book bloggers can be gatekeepers, too, just like agents.

New book bloggers are always cropping up, of course; but as they have little following and no track record, a writer has no idea whether or not the reviewer will follow through. Some bloggers take a book and like old soldiers fade away.

Nonetheless, my advice to a beginning writer is to seek out bloggers. It’s a good way to create chatter about your work. The results will be mixed. Some reviews will be good; some will be bad. Some reviewers will disappear into the void with your masterpiece. Nothing in life delivers 100%. The virtual world is no different.

June 14, 2012

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:01:48 -0700

A STITCH IN TIME

I thought, when I retired, I could throw away my alarm clock. But as I get older, time plays a larger and larger role in my life. When I was young, my birthday or Christmas seemed slow to come around. Now I’ve hardly blown out one set of candles on the cake when it’s time to blow out another.

The trouble with time is that it only flows in one direction – forward. Memory offers a small impediment to its march. I can look backward to see where I’ve been… if I can remember to look back. I can create stitches in time by meditating or being bored, but it’s still a river wending its way toward a vast, absorbing ocean.

(courtesy: fitsugar.com)

When I was working, I was always in a footrace with the clock. Now, with so many goals still on my bucket list, I’m having difficulty keeping up. The world appears like a giant kaleidoscope, ever changing with little opportunity to rest, accept at bedtime, toward I crawl with gratitude.

Diane Ackerman, an essayist and naturalist whose writings I love, doesn’t agree with my assessment. In a recent article, she encourages us to consider the clock as our friend. (“A Loophole in Time,” “More Magazine, 4/12) Being conscious of the march of minutes and hours awakens us “to what really matters,” she writes. What’s more, that consciousness reminds us to schedule leisure moments for ourselves.

Her observation is positive and Ackerman is such a beautiful writer it’s easy to be swayed by her. But not on this occasion. I’m old enough to know there’s a reason why we call that timepiece beside our beds an alarm clock.

How can you misread something so blatantly? Obviously I was writing about a select, upper-crust group of over-indulged children, not about the national record on childcare or a real preoccupation with children's welfare.

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:42:00 -0700

Sorry, if you’re unhappy about something I wrote, you’ll have to be more specific. I write blogs every day, so have no idea what blog offends you. If I did misread, and that’s always possible, I hope you’ve read enough of my blogs to know it’s my belief that the sender of the message is responsible for its content. Is it just possible you were unclear about something, just are your are being unclear now?

Any chance for that coffee meet this weekend? S. Stoner

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:39:46 -0700

Hi Susan, I presume we’ve had coffee. Don’t read the tumblir site often. Best catch me at my e-mail address.

Hi! I jut saw your letter in the Reed 'zine, and thought I'd get in touch. I was at Wilson '64-'68 and then at Reed for a while .... I've since changed my name from Lin to Ashleen; now I live in Tucson and write non-fiction about Wicca and novels about witches. I look forward to following your blog.

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:39:03 -0700

Hi Ashleen, I’m slow to get to tumblir site. Seems like there are so many sites to watch. I will be leaving tumblir hopefully by the end of June if not before but I’ll give you notice. Would like to know more about your book writing.

"Punctuation behaving like traffic cops." Can't say, Caroline, why that phrasing stuck out at me, …I've more reflecting on why it did, but I like it. Was that your phrasing entirely? … Your facebook friend Darrell Barker

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:37:05 -0700

Yes mine entirely, Darrell. Thanks for the compliment

June 13, 2012

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:06:15 -0700

A LITTLE LUNCH TIME MATHEMATICS

I had lunch with a friend yesterday and during the course of our conversation, he observed that, “The earth has seven billion people on it and in 10 years the projection is for nine billion.” He is a man who works with numbers, so he uttered his observation with awe. As for me, the difference had little consequence, unless it represented a difference in the balance of my savings account.

I don’t really get numbers and my math grades testify to that. Still, I was thinking of these figures later that afternoon when I clicked on my computer to check for sales of my book, “Gothic Spring.” It occurred to me thenthat the population of books in the electronic world is also mind-boggling.

I don’t recall there being so many of them when I was growing up. Those of which I was aware were contained in a single space called “the library” and could be located by knowing their number within the Dewey Decimal System.

(courtesy: aprettybook.com)

All that has changed, of course. Today, books are stored somewhere in the cloud, their numbers surpassing the constraints of brick and mortar, and they appear to be growing toward the infinite. Just imagine all those books multiplying relentlessly by the square root of something until even the clouds implode. And still their numbers will swell as new authors, old authors and even the revised editions of dead authors continue to be published.

The statistic is alarming and precisely because in ten years we can expect a population of a mere 9 billion. Given the quantity of books to be read, the number of readers won’t be nearly enough.

June 12, 2012

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:06:48 -0700

A LITTLE BIT OF GOOD AND EVIL

“…atheists are among the most disliked groups in the U.S.” according to Robert Putnam and David Campbell who compiled their studies into a new book, “American Grace. Polls show that the general attitude among churchgoers is that atheists commit most crimes. The general opinion of believers is that non-believers “don’t fear God… [and] do not have the same moral obligation to others.” (“The Rise of Atheism,” a review of “American Grace” in “The Week,” 4/20/12)

This equation of religion with morality has long been a puzzle to me. To assume people can only be good if they fear God, places too dim a view on human nature. What’s more one doesn’t have to look far to put a lie to that connection. Sometimes bad things are done in God’s name. It’s called religious zealotry. And what about all those people who lived before the birth of Christianity? Was Socrates a bad man? Or Plato, Diogenes or Hippocrates?

(courtesy: maininformatland.blastspot.com)

I am no scholar, but I suspect human beings invent codes of law and morality in order to make cooperation possible. Moses may have carried 10 commandments down from the mountain, but those same commandments can be found in most cohesive societies, ancient, heathen or otherwise. A community cannot survive without justice. Fairness for the benefit of all is the essence of the social contract, society based upon survival of the fittest breeds little loyalty and soon falls apart.

Philosophers of many persuasions have argued whether or not the core of human nature is good or evil. If I had to choose, I’d side with good, otherwise there would be no societies.

June 11, 2012

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:06:26 -0700

BEFORE THERE WERE COMPUTERS, THERE WERE LIBRARIANS

I mentioned a book on Friday in my blog that was published in 1872 by Samuel Butler. The novel was one a philosophy teacher often referred to during my undergraduate days. For some reason, I never forgot the weird plot about treating the sick as criminals. Friday, I wanted to reference the book but had forgotten the author’s name and had no idea about how to spell the title:

“Arrow Wan?”

“Arrowwant?”

“Ero One?”

“Aerowan?”

“Ehrowan?”

None of the search engines on my computer found anything viable. Stumped, I sat for a while, blaming my machine and wishing I had someone to talk to. And then it hit me. There was someone!

(courtesy: classof2kt.blogspot.com)

Before I could shout Arrow Wan again, I rushed to my phone and found myself speaking to a reference librarian. She listened sympathetically while I poured out my plight. All I had was the fragment of a plot. Would she… could she… by some miracle help me out?

“Absolutely,” she piped. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll call you back.”

I was doubtful. How could she find what Google, Bing, Go Ask and a host of other search engines had missed? But I was a fool to doubt a reference librarian. Five minutes later the phone rang. “Samuel Butler’s Erowan,” said a cheery voice. “Shall I reserve the book for you?”

After fifty years I felt no urgency to read the novel again. But how could I say “no” to a librarian, especially one who’d just performed a miracle?

I gave her my library card number. It seemed to make her happy.

By the time I put the phone down, I was happy too. “Now that’s what I call a search engine,” I thought.

June 8, 2012

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 23:52:06 -0700

A CALVINIST POINT OF VIEW

One of my favorite short stories is Edgar Allen Poe’s,“Masque of the Red Death.” The plot centers around a medieval prince and his courtiers who retreat to a walled castle, hoping to protect themselves from a plague that is raging across the land. “Magic Mountain” andCamus’ “The Plague” also center around images of decay and disease. In fact, countless writers of history and fiction have centered their attention upon one epidemic or another. But not until I read Geoff Calvin’s article in “Fortune” magazine did I realize the nature of epidemics has changed. Today, few communicable pandemics threaten us — swine flu and bird flu being exceptions. Most diseases that stalk us now are self-induced and caused by unhealthy life styles.

(courtesy: economist.com)

“Today the top causes of death are noncommunicable diseases … coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes, some cancers.” (“We’re Having the Wrong Debate about Rising Health Care Costs” by Geoff Colvin, “Fortune,” April 2012)

The bulk of these ailments come from smoking, alcohol and sugar addictions and the excess calorie counts of super-sized meals. Even chocolate is suspect, however. A recent study out of Yale University indicates that the brain responds to chocolate milkshakes in the same way that drug addicted brains respond to chemical stimulants. (Colvin, pg. 60)

Calvin’s argument is that what’s wrong with the health care system and the reason it is becoming so expensive is that it rewards bad habits with high tech treatments. He argues that we need to reframe the debate so that the question asked isn’t how we share the high cost of medical care but how we reduce the number of users by changing the public’s health habits.

In the 1800’s a prescient Samuel Butler proposed a dark solution for self-destructive behavior. In his novel “Erewhon” people who fell to disease were treated as criminals. A bit drastic perhaps, but Calvin has given us something to think about.