My book proof arrived on Thursday...

...and I've spent the weekend making changes.  My initial excitement at finally holding a physical copy of my novel quickly gave way to a harsh realization.  I still have a lot of work to do.  Your first proof is a learning experience as much as it is a celebration.  Here's a few things I've already learned the hard way:
1.  No one is going to design your book for you--you're self-published, remember?  Check out the first few pages and the last few pages of paperback novels you own.  Notice the front matter--not just one title page, but more often two.  One with an elaborate design, photograph, or drawing and one with the title only.  Reviews, dedications, acknowledgments, notes about the author, notes about the text, publisher info, legal notices, isbn.  All this before the reader ever reaches Chapter One.  And after your closing line--more pages, author's notes, other works by the author, more acknowledgements.  Nothing screams self-published like a measly title page jumping right to your first line.  Gussy it up a bit.
2.  Times New Roman is fine for your manuscript draft, but don't publish with this font.  It looks amateurish in print. Especially at 12 pt.  I'm changing to Palatino Linotype 10 pt.  Commonly used, easy to read, looks good on the page.
3.  While we're on the subject of type fonts, look at those other novels again.  Note fonts for page headers (you did add odd & even page headers, didn't you?  With your author name and the title?).  Note font changes--small caps is nice--for the first line of each chapter.  Note drop caps for the first word, first paragraph in a section break.  All this gives your work a more professional look.
4.  This may be your last chance--edit, edit, edit.  Scour each page.  Look for extra spaces, incorrect indents, misaligned type.  If you want to change sentence structure, delete superfluous adjectives and adverbs, clean up dialogue tags--do it now.  Read for content as well. Once your book is printed, bound and on the market, you can wring your hands and rend your garments, but you can't change a thing.
All this may seem obvious.  I consider myself an intelligent person, but in the rush of enthusiasm to get hold of a print copy, common sense flew out the window.
Your first proof isn't the finale, but it gives you the wonderful opportunity to find out all the things you did wrong.

Have you heard The Hum?

A colleague of mine and I were in her office chatting a few days ago when she suddenly stopped talking, stared off into space and said "Do you hear that?"  "What?" I asked.  "That hum.  I hear it all the time now.  I heard it late last night.  Can't you hear it?"  I listened.  Yes, I heard a faint droning sound.  "I hear it more when I'm lying down in bed than when I'm sitting up," she said.  "I hear it out at our place. It's so loud it drives me nuts."  (She has property near the mountains, not too far from Yosemite National Park.)  When I thought about it, I remembered something strange I'd been hearing at about 3am for the past few weeks.  Sort of an low, undulating, repetitive sound.  We live near the Pacific coast and I'd just passed it off as some type of fog horn in the distance.

Well, as it turns out, we aren't the only ones who've heard it.  Called by various names, the Taos Hum, the Bristol Hum, or that really annoying background noise.  She sent me this link to prove she wasn't completely crazy.

Tesla's Tower

I have my own theory concerning the hum and the earth's fundamental resonance frequency--The Schumann Resonance.  The Schumann resonances are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum. Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances, excited by lightning discharges in the cavity formed by the Earth's surface and the ionosphere. I think we've sent up so much electromagnetic junk over the last century through radio waves, television, microwaves, and now digital transmissions that we've set off a new band wave of resonance in the space between us and the ionosphere.  It's a thought. ????  Others think it's all Tesla's fault--a disruption in the Schumann Resonance caused when he test fired his Wardenclyffe Tower.  Here's an interesting speculation on Tesla and the hum: Manipulating and Harnessing the Schumann Resonance.

So...have you heard The Hum?

Det danske folk

From time to time out of morbid curiosity, I check the stats page on my blog.  I like to see where in the world people are reading my posts.  The overwhelming majority are from the United States, but there are a scattering of hits from all over the globe.  Then...there's this cluster of hits from Denmark far greater in count than any other single country.

So to all my new Danish friends: Velkommen.  Tak for din interesse for mit skriftligt.  (I used Google translator for that phrase, so if I really said something like 'your mother has a face like a chicken' I most sincerely apologize.)

Here's a quote for you all from that well known play about the Prince of Denmark (you know the one):

Henry Fuseli-Ghost of Hamlet's Father

What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

Paperback edition coming soon...

I've been on vacation all week and used the time to re-edit, re-format, and prepare a new cover for eventual publication of The Case Files of Thomas Carney in paperback.  Although Amazon CreateSpace makes the do-it-yourself process fairly simple, it is time-consuming, particularly the cover design.  (Thank God for Adobe In Design.)  I'm now awaiting my first proof.  I should be more excited, but right now I'm just worn out.

The Case Files of Thomas Carney on Independent Paranormal

Check out my new interview with Jennifer Rainey featured on her excellent blog, Independent Paranormal.  We talk about the inspiration behind the book, the struggles of a self-published author and more.

Interview with Cleo Wolfe, Author of The Case Files of Thomas Carney

The Dylan Thomas Random Poetry Generator

I found this link on a site featuring several links to hypertext poetry.  Most of it is unintelligible, but here's my third generation:

I dreamt quickly
By the cobblestreets of the rabbitcatcher
Limping solemnly on the dogdayed leaves
On thoughts of nannygoats
Where bones lie rarely
And all the beef-red girls walk and rave

Play with it here 

Interested in more?  Here's a good set of HYPERTEXT FICTION SITES

The United States...

This isn't a political blog, but today I can't help myself.

Osama bin Laden is dead.  Media all over the world spins the story round and round.

Kudos to the brave Navy Seals who got the real Mission Accomplished.  But let's also stop and consider what the last 10 years have cost us.  The lives of thousands of honorable men and women.  An economy mired in a deepening recession from which we may never fully recover.  The fall of the once strong $US dollar and the rise of a staggering national debt.  Fear mongering which has created a bloated defense budget rife with waste and unaccountability. Limitations on our civil rights via the Patriot Act. A nation divided by bigotry, hatred, and warring ideology to such an extent that consensus on a sound course is all but unreachable.

For this one moment when we are again a 'United' States, let's start to repair our country with reasoned action and civil discourse.  To quote an old Randy Newman song (Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America)--"...America, America, step out into the light.  Your the best dream man has ever dreamed..." Please, let's not continue aboard a Ship of Fools.

Paranormal Files--Update

The face remains on my tree and I remain--unaffiliated.

From the paranormal files...

In the general weirdness department...this face appeared on a tree outside my house about a month ago. I swear before you now that this photo is not retouched, nor did we do anything to alter the tree in any way.  I assume the bark fell off in this pattern.

 

Tree spirit, the Green Man, Jesus or pareidolia ???  I'll let you decide.

The tree sits just beyond my small smoking porch on the side of the house and this guy stares at me as I puff away. He's creeping me out and making me feel guilty.  He looks so disappointed in me.  Maybe I should finally give up the nicotine.

Oh, and to all you Christians out there...Happy Easter.  If this face disappears after Sunday, I'm converting.

Game Theory Takes On Life After Death

Any writer delving into paranormal subject matter, particularly related to life after death, runs the risk of crossing the line on some readers' religious beliefs.  Mindful of this problem, I made a deliberate attempt to keep The Case Files of Thomas Carney religion neutral.  Tom starts the book as an agnostic--he states neither belief nor disbelief in God--and his outlook remains the same to the finish.  When confronted with his new situation in Afterlife, he deals with what he knows to be materially true as events unfold, not what he expects to be true out of a preconceived spiritual framework.

As part of a recent issue on the new theological rendering of hell and expectations of the afterlife, Time writer Bill Saporito included this interesting assessment:

French mathematician Blaise Pascal famously pondered ROE (return on equity,  or in this case, eternity) in the spiritual-investment quandary called Pascal's Wager.  It's an exercise in game theory. A rationalist, Pascal thought about how he might bet against God's very existence and behave accordingly: more rosé, fewer rosaries. But he also knew that had he pursued a hedonistic lifestyle and God existed, a negative outcome would ensue. And he'd be totally, eternally screwed. Better to believe, he reasoned. In Pascal's logic, the rational spiritual investor becomes risk averse and spends a big chunk of the portfolio with God. Pascal, in other words, recommended that you hedge your spiritual investment.


If, in mathematical terms, you assign a zero probability that hell exists, then the rational spiritual investor reduces his exposure, since the expected ROE has been declined. "What do you give up?" asks Yale University professor Keith Chen, a game-theory expert. What's relevant in game theory is the difference between the good and bad outcomes. "If the idea is everybody goes to heaven and everybody enjoys the same privileges, then it unwinds Pascal's Wager," he says.


But both Chen and another game theorist at Yale, Barry Nalebuff, immediately posed another possibility: Is there a nonhell that's still not heaven? (Bell even suggests as much.) If there is heaven and a not-so-good nonhell, there's still a wager, although the spiritual investor might adjust it. Says Nalebuff: "The trick is, what's the cost of leaving?" In this view, Pascal's Wager is more like playing the lottery, says Nalebuff. If you win, heaven is the prize. If you don't, it's just a couple of spiritual bucks lost.

Read more:  A Threat to the Evangelical Business Plan
For those who prefer the old school, here's a photo series:  A Brief History of Hell