It's the End of August- Autumn is Almost Here

I looked yesterday at my stats and realized that I haven't posted in almost a month and it is on my to do list every week (as well as other things). I don't have a good excuse. I wasn't jetsetting in New York and LA promoting my bestselling book. I wasn't meeting with Speilberg about movie rights. No, it is something more simple. I was just lost. The myriad of days just swirl together like a fast forward blur. Sometimes, I forget the day. Sometimes, I forget what I was thinking two seconds ago. Sometimes, I just sit in front of my computer and cannot remember what I was going to do. It is a wonder I manage to get school work done, which has been the only thing getting done. Sometimes, I feel like a kitten who gets distracted by shiny things or just random Jeopardy garbage on the internet.

I am writing about Donald Barthelme (if you don't know who he is, really check him out.) He was published in The New Yorker a lot and I was looking through the archives and then I was distracted by 1960's ads. Oh they were so, I don't know. But there went  an hour down the toilet just looking at old ads.

It's the story ideas that hit me so hard. So many and then I don't write because I have no idea why. I guess I am distracted by something. However, I did manage to write a brand new story and send it to Cicada. Sometimes, I am lost in my thoughts.  And of course are not linear, they swirl around like tornados. I just can't stay focused on work. I think about writing and I think about this and that. I think about what I am going to make for dinner and I then I make something else all together.  It's being exhausted at some time late in the afternoon and having weird dreams that make me feel drained when I wake up. And that is why I haven't written maybe I already thought I did. Maybe I wrote the post in my head (which is something I sometimes do when I am writing in a story) and then I forget to actually write it down.  So I am merrily chugging along and not really doing anything. I know it is a weird paradigm.

Okay so a little bitching now because that is what I am thinking of. Sometimes, I would like to vanish from Facebook. I find it useless. All it does is make me feel like crap because I am ignored a lot. So what is the sense of being on there? I don't really think anyone would notice if I was gone except for two people. I could just quietly go into the night and just vanish off there. I know I am not supposed to let that shit bother me but I can't help that it does, it must be hardwired into my brain or something. I sometimes wonder, what if I did become famous, would I matter more? What if I got sick, would I matter more (and if I did get sick and started mattering more that would piss me off more than anything because a person shouldn't be sick and cared about more because to me it is just too late, just my opinion though).

Even my page for my Etsy store is ignored. No one likes anything or leaves a comment. No one does anything. I tried so many of the  so called helpful things on the internet and nothing is working.  It's almost as if I am there but I am really not there at the same. Sort of like a ghost.

Okay, I will try not to be gone so long next time but I can't make any promises. I am hoping some clarity returns soon. Till next time....

Moonswallow Gates by JM Scott FREE for the 5 Days

Hey all, This is just to let you know that Moonswallow Gates is FREE for the next five days worldwide. I did go through and re-edit once again and I hope that you find it better quality of writing. If you get the book and read it, I am asking for a review of some sorts. I would rather say you hated it then not saying anything at all. This is my first novel, I am working on second novel, but the beta  people are still reading right now. The second novel, I am going to try and find a traditional publisher.

I have several ideas for a new ebook and now I just have to get off my ass and write like the wind.

Enjoy the novel.

Communion

The silkworm is not golden,
no winks snap the tremors
no carbines on the roast,
no moraine in the slam.
Then a buckeye
from an insane ATM-
falls over me.

And when I look across the
dark lantern,
nothing is not there
except for the mellow heathen pumping
blubber into my heaven.
I find the swollen stars
sleeping in underwear
deep in sleepless death.



***
Another poem for your enjoyment.... just wrote it tonight. Would love to know what you think about this poem. What does it mean to you? Let me know, let's start a conversation.

Thoughts- Publishing, Ebooks and Something Else

When you are a big shot author, how much money do you make off an ebook sale? Snap, let's start at the beginning...

I really liked the show Witches of East End on Lifetime (I actually watched this on Netflix. Hey Netflix, here's an idea, YOU continue the show.)  and it has been cancelled by Lifetime. I noticed that it was based off a book so I dashed to Amazon because I was going to get the books and read them. The paperbacks were a little pricey and since I am not a Prime member anymore, I would have to pay for shipping. Then I thought I would get the Kindle version because it SHOULD be cheaper. The first one in the series  was on $3, so I purchased it. The other two were a lot more, I think one was 8 or so and the other was 10 or more. Are they crazy? Of course the price  was set by the publisher.  Stephen King's new book Finders Keepers was $15 for the Kindle edition and I bought the hardback for $17 at Sam's Club. And chances are if the other two Witches of East End books are at Wal- Mart,  I can get the paperback for less then ten bucks a piece if not closer to five, which is what I would pay for an ebook.

As an author who publishes on Kindle, I know what Amazon pays me for royalty. I am not a fancy pants writer so I price accordingly. Which leaves me wondering who is making the money for an ebook sale?  I read somewhere that the publisher covers the cost of printing the books, advertising, editing, etc. These expenses are paid for by the  sales of the book. The publisher takes their cut, then the author gets whatever they are supposed to. Am I right on this?   But when it comes to ebooks, there are no printing costs. Even if you pay for a formatter, it is one cost at the beginning.

Am I wrong to assume that these publishers are setting high prices for ebooks so they can turn a larger profit or does the author actually make more for ebook sales?  Someone tell me the answer! Anyone out there in the world that can shed some light on this topic?

I know publishing books is a business and if you aren't making money, then why do it? Not many companies would keep running in the red.

And really I have nothing else to say about anything at the moment. I tell you what this post sounded a lot better in my head. Sometimes that happens, maybe I should have wrote the post hours ago when it was perfect in my head.

Next week is my birthday and I will be 35. I look back at my life and the number doesn't seem all that big, but I know I already done so much in my life. Now I am at the golden age for being a fancy pants writer with the rest of them. So for my birthday, I wish to be a successful author. <Blowing out the candles>.

Clandestine Emasculation

the jump of flame
the human soil
the infamous malice
the clandestine manner
the alpha reputation
the oblique underhand
the imperial white house

the boudoir eavesdroppers
the lodges of magic
the secret memoirs
the pestilent greeting
the looking-glass fire

the ambition
the hate


the prescription of emasculation.



Found poem using words and phrases found on Google result pages 1-5 for the term "back stairs slanderer"

****

I'm trying to be more dedicated with all my writing and since I am almost done with my term at school, I had a free day to really work on writing. Right now, I am working on poems. I just wrote this one and for some reason I just had to post it on here. I don't know why but it seemed like a good idea. 

Sweet Dreamland Wheels by JM Scott

Hey all, it has been pretty crazy with me these last few weeks. We went to the Jersey Shore at the beginning of this week. Now I am finishing up school work for the week. I wasn't planning on writing another book post but oh well. Anyway Sweet Dreamland Wheels is FREE for the next several days.  This book was created during the month of April and it is filled with found and experimental poetry. There is so much to talk about with this book but first lets talk about construction of the book.

Remember when I published my other poetry book Into the Garden and I said it was a nightmare because formatting was a bitch? This book was created using Kindle Kids Book Creator, a free tool provided by Amazon. If you are a poet and are looking to publish your poetry with the proper format, then you must get this tool. It is very simple to use. To construct the book your pages must be in PDF format. For this book all pages I set for 4x6. Then I manually added each page in the book. Because of the short pages the poems sometimes go to another page, but because of the formatting, no two poems run into one another. Since this worked so well, I will be reformatting my first poetry book to match this one.

The cover- it's pretty wild right? The center picture is actually coral in a fish tank and I did a special effect and it sort of looks like a face. Then I used a vector drawing colored it with various skins and pasted the photo in the center. The background is sand. I really like how it turned out. One great thing about poetry books, is the cover can be a little wild.

I hope you get your free copy and I really hope you enjoy the poems. Here is a sample that is found in the book.  Till next time...

So This is Really the Apocalypse

Drops of blood pitter-pat
down Phoenix Road
fresh stalks of piranha
rolled oranges
with fucking rough underwear,
and swallowed the scraps.

I saw los chicos
on the sticky trail
blanked and blurry
screaming-
forfeited their hearts
with no great loss.

The girl got eaten by an orange,
a raw throat
rolling in the gutter.

Source: Cortese, Kate. “Swallowed.” Nano Fiction. Nano Fiction, 10 May 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Get Your Summer Reading On! Books by JM Scott

Hello, For all intensive purposes summer is here and you are going to need some reading material. Currently, I have two books that are FREE and a brand new one I released today!

Blood on the Carpet is FREE! Until this Saturday June 6, 2015. This collection features one long short story and a bunch of flash fiction stories all in the mystery genre. Many of the stories have a female main character. It is an excellent read because the stories are so short and  perfect for reading stuck in traffic (that is if you are a passenger), on the beach or at the amusement park while you are waiting for kids to come off the rollercoaster.

 

 


Heart of a Goddess is a horror short story. Leonard meets the woman of his dreams in a snowstorm. He discovers she is Morrigan, Celtic Goddess of the underworld. She promises Leonard an eternal life with her if he brings her a beating human heart to consume. This was my first ebook I self published. And it is very special to me. I am in the Mythology class at school and we just learned about Morrigan and I got warm in fuzzy inside because I thought of this book right away. This book is FREE until this Saturday, June 6.

Finally, Sweet Dreamland Wheels my latest poetry collection is now live on Kindle. It is not on sale yet but will be soon. Currently, it is $1.99 in the US market. This book is all found poetry or experimental poetry. Some popular authors I used as sources are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, HP Lovecraft, CS Lewis, Joyce Carol Oates and others. Other sources included a menu, finding words while on a walk and listening to conversations. I will write more about this book in the coming days.



If you like you what read, there are plenty more of books to choose from in different genres and prices. And if you Kindle Unlimited member, you can read any of my books for free, anytime.

Till next time....