The Journey of St. Laurent, Chapter 11

Author’s Note:

For those of you who are new: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1:  Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.

As always, I appreciate typo alerts.

Chapter 11 – The Fastest Gun On The Freeway

The freeway was unbearably hot. I had been too busy a minute ago to tell, but now it felt like I was kneeling on a lit barbecue grill.

The sun beat down and made the stink of blood and gasoline all the stronger.

D didn’t say a word, but his hand shook. His knuckles were white on the revolver’s handle. He glared down at me and raised the gun to my head.

He was too close for his own good. I was pretty certain that I could swat his hand to that side before he could react. But then what? I try to wrestle a gun away from a bigger guy who’s gone insane? Of course, it would be better to try something than to just die there while kneeling on the hot freeway.

I opened my hands flat and raised them about chest high. “I didn’t kill your friends. You know that. I know you’re angry and hurt and sad and-”

His head snapped up and to the side. A bead of sweat ran down next to his ear. “You don’t know nothin’. You don’t know me, man.”

Shouting came from the ever growing crowd of crashed drivers. I couldn’t focus enough to figure out what they were saying, but I could tell they weren’t happy.

I eased my hands up to be just over my shoulders. I forced my voice to slow down. “You are right, I don’t know you. But believe me, I know pain, and I know what it’s like to lose-”

“Shut up! You come here and act all in charge and now Jess is dead, too. That ain’t right.”

Only a few inches between my hands and the gun. I’ve got make a move soon. “What about your friend? He’s the one who dropped her.”

“Only because you told him-”

“Told him what, to help save her life?

He glared down at me. “I’m so going to kill you.”

I jerked my head down and to the side and swatted with my right open hand. It made contact.

The revolver roared.

He missed.

Several onlookers screamed.

I rolled back onto the balls of my feet and made a desperate grab for the gun.

He pulled back. His gun and hand slipped from my fingertips.

I pushed up and dove at him.

He sidestepped.

I flailed out again for his gun- this time I caught his hand. I held on tight and let my weight pull down.

He tried again to jerk the gun away.

My knees hit the ground first, and it hurt, but I held on tight.

His shoulder dropped with the extra weight. He let go of the gun and recoiled his arm.

I couldn’t hold the empty hand.

The gun and I clattered to the ground.

D bent over and grasped at the fallen revolver.

I looked up. It was close. I extended my left arm.

I hit the gun first but couldn’t close my fingers on it and it slid away another couple of feet.

I scrambled to my knees.

D stumbled in the direction of the gun.

I scampered after him.

D got there first and snatched it up.

I brought a foot up and prepared to dive at him again.

D spun around.

Another thunder rang out, and something whizzed by my head. A hole opened up in the front of, and a mist of red sprayed from the back of D’s left shoulder. His body rotated to the left, and his right arm swung forward.

I punched at his hand again.

This time I connected on his wrist.

His hand spasmed and the gun flew forward.

I spun to the left and jumped up.

The little brother was in the Jeep. The redhead stood next to it, holding my rifle up to the ready. Jackson was still sitting on the ground next to the victim I had assigned him. His face was pale and he stared at the commotion.

My heart pounded. I jumped over the unconscious Louis.

Behind me, D screamed.

I glanced back.

D was falling all over himself to pick up the revolver.

I ran all the faster.

The girl still aimed the gun at D.

“What are you doing? Get in the car.”

“He’s going to-”

“So let’s put some distance between us.”

She raised the gun and ran for the passenger’s door.

Another shot rang out.

There’s no way he’s a good enough aim. Especially if he’s hurt.

We jumped in the Jeep.

She put one knee on the seat and pointed the gun back at the crash scene. “Michael, get your head down!”

I turned the key and punched the gas.

The Jeep lurched to life, spitting a fair amount of dust and gravel as the tires clawed at the ground. Somewhere behind us, D fired again.

I shifted up through the gears and checked the rear view mirror.

Smoke and steam rose from the pile of cars. D was running in our direction. A crowd of people were running after him.

Up ahead, the road ahead was mostly clear for a couple of miles as the wreck behind us had stopped traffic for a while. I’m sure the flying craft had something to do with it, too.

“Everybody okay?”

The redhead looked back at her brother. “I think so. You okay Michael? Yeah, we’re okay.”

When you know you’ve just been shot at, you go through a whirlwind of emotion. First, your intestines coil up like a rattle snake. You feel this tightening for an instant, then you feel a half heartbeat of relief that you’re still alive, and finally you settle on your final emotion- for some folks, it’s back to fear. Fear of the second or third shot. Fear for your life. For other folks, and this includes me, it’s anger. About the time D disappeared from the rear view mirror, my anger had settled in nicely. It didn’t help that we had to yell to get heard, being in a topless Jeep and all.

“Good. Now what were you thinking back there?”

“Maybe you’d rather get shot?”

“You almost did shoot me.”

“Why do you even have a gun in here?”

“I heard the bullet whiz right-”

“No, seriously, why do you have a gun? Are you planning on killing someone?”

“Maybe you missed it, but a UFO buzzed us.”

“Yeah, and you had time to run home and get your gun?”

“Well, after the president went on TV, I thought it might be a good-”

“My brother’s just a kid, what if he had hurt himself-”

“I wasn’t exactly planning on picking anybody up, children or other-”

“Well, maybe you need to think just a little more before you let a child get anywhere near your firearms.”

“Well, maybe you need to think just a little before putting your brother in the Jeep of a guy who carries a mini-14 under his back seat.”

“Maybe next time I-”

“And then you let me drive!”

The redhead raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “You might have a point.”

The old Jeep bounced along. There was hardly any traffic, just the occasional fender bender that would have to wait a while for the authorities to arrive.

The UFO must have scared everybody off the road.

I wondered who my two passengers were and what I was supposed to do about them.

We had driven in silence for a good fifteen minutes when Michael leaned forward as far as he could in his seatbelt.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

_______

Keep Reading! Chapter 12 is here.

Coauthoring Without Murder

by Randy Ingermanson

reposted with permission

"We’re Best Friends Forever," she said, tilting her head toward the woman sitting beside her at the dinner table. "And we’re writing a novel together. Isn’t that COOL?"

I nodded noncommitally. "Sounds . . . great." We were eating supper at a writing conference and I was hosting a table and trying to get to know the other writers at my table. But anytime I hear that two friends are coauthoring, I get nervous, because writing a novel together can be murder on your friendship.

"We heard you coauthored a couple of novels with your best friend," one of the BFFs said. "And those worked out great, right?"

I nodded. Yes, I wrote two novels with my best buddy, John Olson. Yes, we sold the novels, won several awards, and remained best buddies. Yes, it worked out extremely well. Yes, we would do it again.

But the fact is that writing a novel with a friend doesn’t always work out great. In fact, it rarely works out at all.

Coauthoring is serious business, and there are a lot of ways to go wrong. John and I were too ignorant to know better, or maybe we wouldn’t have tried it. But we did and it worked.

The main reason — probably the ONLY reason — you should ever coauthor a novel with anyone is that you each bring some skill to the table that the other person doesn’t have.

With fiction, the most common reason two people coauthor a novel is that one of them is an expert on the subject of the novel, while the other is an expert at writing fiction.

The reason this works so well is that fiction needs both good content and good craft in order to work. Normally, an author brings both the content and the craft, but it makes perfect sense to team up one person who has the content and another person who has the craft.

For example, the LEFT BEHIND series, which sold tens of millions of books, teamed up Tim LaHaye (famous in certain circles for his interpretation of biblical prophecy) with Jerry Jenkins (a talented novelist). Tim brought the content; Jerry brought the craft. Together, they made an enormously successful team.

So whenever I meet BFFs who are working together on a novel, the first question I ask is, "What does each of you bring to the project that the other doesn’t?"

A lot of times, this draws a very long, blank look, and the words, "Well . . . we’re FRIENDS."

My next question is, "How do you split up the writing?"

If this also gets a blank look, then I know this partnership is in trouble. You have to split up the writing somehow. You have to. You can’t sit there at the keyboard all cuddly and both type at once. (John and I NEVER tried this, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work.)

I’ve often thought about what went right with John and me. There were several reasons that we made a good team.

First, we have complementary organizational skills. John is a visionary guy who is great at setting strategic goals. I am good at taking a vision and translating that into a set of tactical goals. So our first novel, OXYGEN, was John’s idea (although I contributed a lot of ideas). I made the battle plans (and John played a key role in revising those plans).

Second, we have different areas of expertise. John is a biochemist. I’m a physicist. Our novel, about the first human mission to Mars, required a ton of research. John handled the life-science aspects. I took on the physical-science stuff.

Third, we have different skills as fiction designers. John is exceptional at developing plot and he LOVES writing synopses. I find character development easy and I LOVE writing character sketches. So we each did what we liked best in developing the story and writing the proposal.

Fourth, we have complementary emphases in our writing. John loves to "write from the shadows" — giving each scene an air of mystery and intrigue. I like shining a bright light on things, so that the reader always knows exactly what the viewpoint character knows.

So when John edited my scenes, he added some mystery and shadows. When I edited his scenes, I clarified things that might have confused the reader. Somehow, it all melded together into a unique style that was neither mine nor John’s. Our editors were completely unable to guess which of us wrote which parts.

Now here is where things could have gone badly wrong. If we’d asked anyone for advice, they’d have told us not to both be the writer. It’s very hard to mix two people’s styles into something that works.

But we didn’t ask for advice because we didn’t know there might be a problem. So both of us wrote first draft material and both of us edited. Our biggest problem was scheduling things so that we were always up to speed on what the other guy had written.

Early on, we thought that if we each wrote a scene at the same time, then we could work twice as fast. But then we discovered that the scenes simply didn’t work, because the tone of one scene’s ending determines the tone of the scene that follows. And you don’t know exactly how a scene is going to play out until you write it.

So eventually, we hit on a plan where we’d map out the scenes for a week in advance. It would go like this: Randy will write a scene Monday morning and send it to John. John will edit that Monday night, then write the next scene, and send them both to Randy. On Tuesday morning, Randy accepts or rejects John’s changes, then edits John’s scene, then writes the next scene, and sends it all to John.

Repeat until the end of the book. It’s a little complicated, but it worked without anybody losing an eye.

There was another rule we had. Each of us "owned" certain characters and we got to write the first draft of any scenes in which our character was the point-of-view character. John "owned" the female biochemist astronaut named Valkerie. I "owned" the male physicist astronaut Bob.

There was a third character named Nate who had a fair number of viewpoint scenes. Nate was a very rude and belligerent guy, and it turned out that I’m ruder and more belligerent than John, so I wound up writing Nate’s scenes. This evened the work out, because John’s character Valkerie had more scenes than my character Bob.

If you are going to work with another author, then one key requirement is that you both have to leave your ego at the door. This is hard. Writers have big egos (otherwise, they’d never do something as egotistical as believe that they might be able to write something that many thousands of people might actually want to read.)

I think what made things work for John and me was that we each had a very healthy respect for the other guy’s talents. We had been friends for a few years, and each of us knew what the other was capable of doing. I think each of us felt lucky to be working with the other guy.

There is a very bad reason that people sometimes give for coauthoring: "It cuts the work in half to have two people working on it."

No. It cuts the MONEY in half. But there is always some inefficiency in getting two people working together. I suspect that in most cases there is a LOT of inefficiency.

Don’t kid yourself on this. It may take more time to coauthor a novel than to write it alone. I used to joke that "John wrote 80% of our book . . . and I wrote the other 80%."

But I suspect that each of us actually put in about 120% of the normal effort for a book. This would be foolish unless the end result is better than either author could have done alone. In our case, I think we did get a better result as a team than either of us could have done solo.

When John and I first pitched the idea for our book to an editor, one question he asked was what we’d do if we disagreed. We hadn’t thought about that, but the answer seemed obvious to me. The book was John’s idea. So if we couldn’t agree, then he had the deciding vote. For the same reason, his name would go first on the cover. And if we decided to break up the team, then John would own full rights to the book.

Our editor thought that made sense. It would have been wise to spell that out in writing, along with a few other details. Maybe we should have. I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to write a contract between coauthors, but we never did.

Should you write your novel with a coauthor? Before you do, here are some questions you MUST have answers to:

• Why can this NOT be a solo project?
• How are you going to split the work?
• How are you going to split the money?
• When you disagree, who gets to decide?
• Whose name will go first on the cover, and why?

You’ll notice that none of those questions has anything to do with whether you’re best friends with your coauthor. Friendship is a fine, fine thing, but you need a good sound business reason before you enter a business relationship with anyone.

I never heard what happened to the two BFFs who were writing a novel together. Maybe they finished it. Most likely they didn’t. I hope they’re still friends.

People ask me once in a while if John and I are going to write another novel together. The answer is always a good, firm, "Maybe." We’d like to. Working together was great fun, and I learned a lot about writing from John. I hope that he may have learned a trick or two from me.

But it has to be the right book, at the right time, for the right reason. When that happens, we’ll do it. If it doesn’t, we won’t. I value John’s friendship more than I value any book we might write together.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 16,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

What Happened to Friday?

Sorry about the no new fiction on Friday. I’m back on track for this Friday.

It’s not why I didn’t post, but I found out about another poopy review on Amazon on Friday. If my ego weren’t so huge, it probably would have really hurt. So if you get a minute, I’d appreciate it if you (yes you) would go on to Amazon and leave a more fair review to balance it out… Assuming of course you’ve read Oasis. I don’t need to cheat.

I’ve got lots of exciting things on the way, though. I was just got finished being interviewed for a popular podcast, I’ve been working on an audio and video trailer for Oasis, as well as a couple other things.

Thanks for all the support, you guys.

The Journey Of St. Laurent, Chapter 10

Author’s Note:

For those of you who are new: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1:  Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.

As always, I appreciate typo alerts.

Chapter 10 – Red Highway

Everybody reacts differently to a crisis. Some people sob uncontrollably. Some people go into some degree of shock and freeze up. An awful lot of people become hyper suggestible. It stems from the fact that most folks have no idea what to do, but they know something needs to be done. All they need is someone to point them in the right direction.

And as it happens, I like telling people what to do.

I backed myself out of the car.

Over by the first victim I treated, things were going from bad to worse. The redhead was now standing between D and her brother. D was clenching his fists and getting in the redhead’s face. The little brother was crying. Two guys from the pileup mess took a step forward and looked like they might jump in if D hit the redhead. From their angle, they couldn’t see what I saw- D’s gun.

I glanced at the blue car. What do I do first?

Two of D’s friends were still looking through the shattered window at the last victim.

I pointed at one of them. “Hey, one of you two come here.”

They looked at me and then at each other.

“You. The one on the left.”

The one on the left pointed at himself. “Me?”

“Come over here and help.”

“What’s your name?”

“Um, Jackson.”

“Ok, ‘um Jackson’ follow me.”

“What?”

“Follow me and help me out for a minute.”

“Uh, right.”

He didn’t look too sure about helping, but I didn’t care. The situation had to change or it would end in violence.

I didn’t wait to see if he would follow me. I just walked toward D and the redhead. “Hey, D! I’m going to need your help for a minute.”

D turned his head and glared at me. “I’m busy, fool.”

“I know, but your other friend, the one still in the back seat, she’s going to die unless we get her out and get her immobilized. The other guys aren’t a big as you. I need your muscle.”

“She already killed Tyrone and now she’s-”

“Every second you waste over here, you’re killing your other friend right now.”

D pointed a finger right in the redhead’s face. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m not finished with you.”

“Just give me a minute to tell your other buddy how to help this guy.”

“Whatever.”

D turned and stormed back toward the blue car. He was not looking stable. He smelled like he had been drinking. He looked like he was angry and scared and sick and embarrassed and confused all at once.

I leaned toward the redhead and lowered my voice. “Will your car still drive?”

She shook her head and pointed. “What do you think?”

The front end was mangled pretty bad where she had collided with the blue car.

“Get your brother and get in my Jeep over there. Keys are in the ignition. Wait for me, but if things go nuts, you just take off, got it?”

She nodded.

I turned back.

D was making a big deal about not looking at his dead friend. Jackson was finally making his way over.

“You know this guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Your job is to be his comfort. Just talk to him until more help gets here.”

“Talk about what?”

“Tell him he’s going to be okay. Tell him about the weather. Tell him about your mother. It doesn’t matter. He needs to keep hearing a friendly voice. If his breathing changes or he starts looking even worse, you let me know.”

I took a deep breath. Just keep working.

D was already looking a little green around the gills when I got back to the last victim.

I just hope he can keep it together long enough to help get this girl out.

“Okay, listen up, you two. We’ll bunch in there as best we can. My job will be to hold her head steady so she doesn’t drive that shard of glass into her artery. You two guys are responsible for hooking under her arms and doing the heavy lifting to pull her out. We’ll drag her just clear of the car and the other mess. Does one of you know her name?”

“Jess.”

“And what’s yours?”

“Louis.”

It took the three of us pulling together to get the mangled door open. Thankfully, the jostling hadn’t caused Jess to wake up or push the glass shard deeper. With the door open, I could tell Jess’s arm was definitely dislocated.

I reached in and put one hand on the base of her neck and one hand on the back of her head.

“D, you get in here on my left. Louis, squish an arm around here on the right.”

Somehow we kept her still while D slid the driver’s set forward. It was crowded, but we all had our arms in there. We tugged, shifted, slipped, tugged, switched and tugged again. Just a few feet more and we’d have her out of the car.

I was feeling pretty confident about the whole operation when the unthinkable happened.

Jess came to.

Her eyes fluttered then opened wide. Her shoulder and legs muscles spasmed with a solid jerk.

“It’s all right, Jess. Just be still. You’ve been injured in a car wreck and we need-”

She screamed.

Louis wobbled.

I looked up.

His face had drained. His stare was blank. Louis had just fainted, and he was on his way down.

I fumbled to get one hand under Jess’s shoulder.

Oh, no.

It was no use. Her weight shifted and yanked down hard. Her head flopped to the side, driving the shard even deeper. Her body twisted and pulled free.

Her upper body fell and pushed against the Louis’s legs.

His unconscious body collapsed away from us and her upper body hit the pavement. Her legs were still in the back seat. Blood gushed from her neck.

I jumped around her to be on the side of the wound. “No, no, no.”

D stumbled back away.

The blood came in heavy spurts.

I ripped out the glass shard, put my hands against her neck, and pushed hard. “No, no, NO!”

It was no use. I couldn’t stop the flow. I couldn’t even slow it down. Nothing I could do would help, and I knew it. That didn’t stop me from trying, though.

Her eyes were still open, but they were still and vacant.

Unconscious again. Hit her head.

Each spurt from the wound came weaker and weaker as her life ebbed from her body.

My hands shook and I felt the weight of my failure rest on my shoulders.

The spurting slowly came to a stop and then she was still.

I reached over and closed her eyes, then hung my head and wept. There was nothing else to do.

I closed my eyes saw the worst memory of my life. In the memory it is summer and the sky is blue. My father and I jump out of his car and run toward a wreck. My mother is slumped behind the wheel of her mangled car. Her neck is twisted and broken. There is blood on the dashboard and steering wheel. I am fifteen and my whole world has ended. I cannot control my tears, and I cannot understand how it is that nobody could save her.

This is the memory that drove me to become an EMT, and then a nurse in the ER. This is the memory that has ever since driven me to help people. This is the memory that will forever haunt my failures. Failures like the woman half on the pavement in front of me.

I opened my eyes again and took a deep breath.

Two white-stained-red shoes stood near the dead woman’s head. Standing in the shoes was a man.

I looked up and squinted at the glare of the sun. It was D. On his cheek was a tear. In his hand was a revolver.

He flared his nostrils and sucked in some air, then eased his thumb back and cocked the hammer.

___________

Keep Reading! Chapter 11 is here.

Filedby.com – A New Marketing Tool For Authors

I’m always looking for new ways to get my name out there and get folks to read my fiction. Sometimes I don’t have to look too hard though – the information just finds it’s way to me.

A representative of a new website named FiledBy.com emailed me and gave me a quick rundown of their service. I checked out their site and thought it might be useful to review what they do and pass it along.

What is FiledBy.com?

According to the email I was sent, FiledBy is an “…author-centric website with free digital marketing and community building tools…”

So what is FiledBy.com really?

It’s basically like a public facebook specifically for authors & readers. An author signs up for or claims an account (more on claiming an account in a second) then puts up bio information and a list of his/her books.

Readers can then go on the site, comment on and rate books and authors they like. And find new authors and all that jazz.

Requirements and Signup

Before you sign up as an author, you do need to have at least one work in print that has an ISBN. If you’ve self-published through CreateSpace or used the appropriate distribution option at Lulu or you just own your own ISBN, you should be good to go.

However, if they don’t already have information about you, you will need to supply them with ISBNs of any books you have in print.

Because I published through CreateSpace, I had to use their little form to tell them my ISBN so they could research and do the actual creation of my author page. It would have been nice to be able to fill out whatever info was necessary by myself, though. I mean, If I can provide an ISBN, they should be able to tell if it’s legit and then let me get going. Instead I had to wait. sigh.

However, I had to wait less than 24 hours. So they’re currently pretty quick about getting things done.

What about this claiming an account thing?

They’ve apparently done a bit of data mining (it looks like from Bowker’s Books in print) to seed their site. They claim to have listings for over 1.8 million authors. From a regular visitor’s standpoint, that is a good thing, as it means you can look up and comment on your favorite author even if that author hasn’t or will never actually sign up for an account. So if you are one of the authors that they already have a page for (I was not) then you claim the page that has been pre-started for you rather than starting yourself a new one.

Setting up Your Author Page

Changing stuff on your author page is easy. When you are logged in and looking at your page, there are just little buttons that say “edit” under the various headings. You then upload your image or change the text.

With a free account, you also get to upload one “media” file – an embedded video (like from youtube), a pdf, or an MP3. I went ahead and uploaded one of my fantasy short stories.

FiledBy also then generates links to purchase your book at Amazon and other online booksellers.

Paid vs Free Accounts

Here’s a quick lowdown of what you get for free and what you get when you pay.

With a free account, you get an author page with an editable bio and photo. You get to list all of your books that have ISBNs, manage their covers, and you get get to order them however you want. You get to add two links to your sidebar (I chose to link here and to my twitter account.) You get to add one media item, as mentioned earlier.

With a premium upgrade ($99 a year) you get the free features and you add several ‘outreach to the fans’ features. You get a calendar so folks can see when you’re doing your next signing. You get the ability to promote upcoming books in addition to your already published ones. You get a blogging tool that you can use to blog via filedby or you can have it automatically update from your regular blog. You get to post a total of three media files and have up to six links on your sidebar. You also get a chance to moderate your wall (comments on your profile) so you can minimize the effect of haters. And lastly you get a ‘What I’m reading’ list, so your fans can read what you read.

If you go all the way to a premium plus upgrade($399 / year), you get everything else and a couple of nice marketing features. You can add testimonials and endorsements. You can add awards you’ve earned. You get to add up to ten media files and have up to ten links on your sidebar. You get to add a ‘press kit’ to which you can point everyone who interviews you. (here’s the example they have) You can add a custom header to your page. Finally, you get in the rotation for the “Featured Authors” section at the top of the homepage and the category pages.

Things I Would Like, But Couldn’t Find

• The ability to at least suggest the genre that I / my book fall into.
• A way to add a short description for my book. The “Membership Levels” grid says you can do this, but I never could figure out how. I could only change the cover picture.
• Reporting features. I’d like to know how many people looked at my profile, how many looked at my book, and how many people downloaded the short story pdf I put up. Also link tracking would be nice – I can tell from my site stats how many visitors came from FiledBy.com, but it’d be cool to know how many went to my twitter page and how many clicked on a buy link. This could make a huge difference in my willingness to upgrade my account.

My Personal Tiny Hysteria Over The License

I’ve begun reading those terms of service that everyone makes you say you’ve read when you sign up for an account at the new site.

There was one thing that kind of raised an eyebrow for me as I read the Terms of Service. Part of the paragraph under the heading “Submitted Materials” said:

…However, by submitting materials to the Site, you hereby grant FiledBy a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform such materials in connection with the Site, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Site (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels, without  compensation to you or any other person….

Here’s one reason this bothered me. I post my fiction chapter by chapter on my blog. If I pay the $99 a year to upgrade I can have my author page on filedby be automatically updated with my blog posts. So as my blog posts get gathered to filedby, they then are granted a permanent right to use my fiction however they want. They could even transfer or sublicense my fiction to somebody else. I’m not saying that current ownership would do that – sell a right to print (at least the online version of) my next book- but they could.

This won’t be a problem for everybody, but because I am currently marketing myself the way I am (posting fiction on my site) it could be a problem for me. The solution of course is not to hook up my blog to my author page on filedby. But doesn’t that kind of defeat at least part of the purpose of paying the $99 a year? Or I suppose I could just use their built-in blogging tool (which I didn’t have the chance to test.)

I do like the thought of being able to syndicate content from my blog, but I also really want to be able to remove content I own if I ever want to.

In all fairness, I’d imagine that they just want the ability to sell the site if it starts becoming hugely popular and transfer the author-entered content they have on the site. Or maybe they’d license out the expanded info they have now gathered the same way they probably licensed the info from Bowker’s. I don’t really have a problem with that because I want more people to find out who I am.

Oh, yeah, and elsewhere they describe what is considered personal information, and personal information will not be disclosed publicly.

All that being said – I still signed up for a free account.

How I Plan On Using FiledBy.com

For the time being, I’m just going to use a free FiledBy account as a lead source to find new readers. If I start noticing a jump in traffic coming from them or a spike in sales of my novel, I may consider upgrading. But only if it’s pretty clear that it’s going to boost sales enough to cover the account upgrade costs – after all, I’ve got a well-trafficked blog already, and I could throw a calendar on the sidebar at any time if I felt it appropriate. I’ve also already got a separate site for my novel, and it ranks pretty well for it’s most likely keyword, zombie novel. I’m not sure I could do that without total control of the book website.

If you want to see what a free account looks like, here’s my filedby profile. Feel free to rate me and Oasis as you deem appropriate. As long as you think five stars is appropriate. If you hurry, you can be the first to join my reader list.

The Verdict

For authors who want to have a good looking page and don’t want to do anything technical to get one, filedby.com is a good place to start. $99 a year for a blog (and a couple of other things) seems a bit steep to me, though. But then again, I’m a nerd, and comfortable finding a host and doing all the technical things necessary to operate my own websites.

The people who should upgrade are the folks who do plan on using their FiledBy page as their main website. It really would make things easy to manage.

Also, I believe at least a free filedby.com account would be a good addition for any author.

In my opinion, the thing that might make the $399 a year “Premium Plus” upgrade the most worthwhile is if being on the “Featured Authors” lists generates a significant amount of traffic/book sales. Of course the site is new, so there really is no way to prove that just yet.

All in all it seems like a good service/platform. If you’re looking for more exposure as an author, you should definitely check it out.

FiledBy.com

The Journey Of St. Laurent, Chapter 9

Author’s Note:

For those of you who are new: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1:  Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.

As always, I appreciate typo alerts.

Hopefully this chapter is worth the long wait.

Chapter 9 – A Mass Loss Of Sanity

In the rear view mirror, I caught a glimpse of something silver in the sky.

It can’t be.

Before I could get a good look, the object was passing directly overhead. As it did, the Jeep dipped a little, like someone had just thrown a truckload of cinder blocks in the back seat. I felt a weight in my chest, constricting my breath. The noise of driving was dampened and the air felt thick. For a moment, I could have sworn there was Jello rather than blood coursing through my veins.

Just as quickly as the strange pressure had appeared, it was gone. The thing had passed over and come into full view.

At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, and then I just didn’t want to. The weight had lifted, but my stomach dropped just the same. And kept dropping.

It was a UFO.

Fear shot through me like lightning on a weather vane.

The craft was immense. At least a football field and a half long. It looked like a triangular bowl held upside-down in the air. The bottom was covered with large spikes that made it look like golf cleats. It had a silvery hue but didn’t reflect as much light as I thought it should have.

It had been moving very fast but seemed to be slowing down as it neared the city.

My hands trembled on the steering wheel. How in the world are we going to fight that?

Movement from the road ahead caught my eye. Several cars ahead, a little blue car with a large spoiler and fancy rims swerved across two lanes of traffic. I couldn’t see the moment of impact, but I did see the little blue car leap sideways into the air and roll a few times.

I touched the brakes.

That’s going to be ugly. Whoever’s in that car is going to be needing help, and fast.

The drivers directly behind the rolling vehicle slammed on their brakes. Everyone else must have been fixated on the UFO, as cars began to plow into them.

I jerked the wheel to the right and took the Jeep onto the shoulder.

The air was filled with a dozen screeching and crunching and honking sounds. Cars were piling up. Nobody was going anywhere for a while.

I pulled around a car that had spun sideways up to where I could see the grisly wreck and stopped.

The car had ended up wheels down and sideways. The freeway behind it was a mess of glass, steel and blood.

I pushed all thoughts of aliens and UFOs from my head. This was my turf now, and I had lives to save.

I could make out four victims from the blue car. One had been thrown about ten or twelve feet ahead and to the right. One was lying on the ground next to the driver’s door behind the car. It appeared that the car had rolled over him after he had been flung from it. Two had bounced around in, and were still trapped in the back of the car.

I glanced back to the pileup. There were an awful lot of bent fenders, but nothing that looked as bad as the roll over. There was movement coming from most of the cars, so I was hopeful there weren’t any more critical injuries.

I turned off the Jeep, jumped out, and ran to the victim that had been thrown far from the car.

I ran away from home when I was seventeen. The first thing I did was get into an EMT course, and then I worked as an EMT to put myself through nursing school. It had been a couple of years since I was the first responder at an accident, but the basic principles don’t change.

The hardest part of being at a serious accident is not the blood or the gore. The hardest part is choosing who to care for first. That choice can mean the difference between life and death.

As a nurse in the ER it was different. If multiple injuries come in, the doctor in charge just assigns or splits a team. Even when you get stretched, everybody in critical condition gets someone to help.

I might be the only one in a position to help these four. I knelt and looked over the first victim.

His right leg was mashed up under his body. His left leg took an unexpected turn in the shin- probably broken clean through. His head was bleeding somewhere in the back. The back of his head didn’t look right, either. Possible fractured skull. His chin was pushed way down toward his chest. Enough so that I doubted air could move through the windpipe.

I slid a hand under his neck and lifted as gently as I dared.

His head rolled back and a gurgle of air escaped, followed by a shallow breath.

I rested his head back against the pavement. Airway’s open and he’s breathing, just barely.

His heartbeat was faint but regular enough. Overall, there wasn’t much blood, only a bit around the head and then some seeping from scrapes. Any other injuries had to be internal.

Nothing else to do here.

From the pileup, I could hear a couple of car doors opening, and some yelling.

I stood up.

A girl with short red hair was walking toward me.

She looked pale as can be and was shaking. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hit them. I didn’t- is there anything I can-”

I held up a hand. “It’s not your fault. Do you have a blanket or a coat or anything like that in your car?”

She shook her head.

“How are you with gross stuff?”

She shrugged.

“Okay, then I want you to kneel or sit by this guy that I’ve just been helping. Hold his hand, but don’t move his arm around much. Tell him help is on the way and that things are going to be all right. He probably won’t respond, but it’s important to keep saying it anyway. Can you handle that?”

She nodded.

I touched her arm. “Thanks.”

I looked back again at the pileup.

Four guys with gold teeth, baggy pants and bandannas were getting out of a purple low-riding hoopdie.

I hate to be judgmental, but I got the distinct feeling they weren’t coming over to help.

There was no time to find out what they were up to. I went directly to the next victim.

It was not a scene for the faint of heart. His head had been crushed, with his face crumpled inward and the side of his skull cracked open. It’s contents were half on the pavement. His chest had a very unnatural shape to it and was ripped open in places. Blood was everywhere.

There was nothing to be done but leave the dead man there and move on.

“Hey, what’s a matter?”

I looked over at the four hoods.

The tallest one was doing the yelling. “Ain’t you going to help him? What’s a matter? Too white to help a brother?”

I almost laughed. My mother was originally from Spain, and I had inherited her Mediterranean skin. I had even been mistaken for an Arab several times in my life. This was the first time I had ever been called white.

I noticed he was wearing a black, puffy coat. Something inside said it wouldn’t do me any good to argue with a man dumb enough to wear a winter coat during the summer in San Antonio.

I ignored his questions walked around to the passenger door. “If one of you has a cell phone, dial 911 until you get through.”

“Hey, I’m talkin’ to you, boy.”

“Leave him alone, D. We should probably call. This ain’t his fault.”

The glass was broken out of all the blue car’s windows. The car had been mangled pretty good, but the door looked like it might still open.

I pulled on the handle and gave a yank.

The door wobbled and creaked, but it opened.

I hit the passenger seat lever and the seat folded and slid forward.

In the back seat were two women. The skinnier one was sitting with wide eyes, holding on to her knees and shaking violently.

The chubbier one was much more spread out and appeared conscious.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

I reached out a hand.

The skinny girl just stared at me.

“Come on, you’re going to be okay. Let’s just get you out of here.”

She let go of one of her knees and reached up. The right side of her face was covered in blood. The flying glass must have caught her. The wound didn’t look deep, though.

Outside, the hoodlums were arguing about something.

I backed up and helped her from the car.

“I want you to sit down, okay? Over here out of the way. Everything is going to be all right. Just sit down.”

From the other side of the car, I could hear vomiting. One of them had finally checked on their dead friend.

I helped the girl sit down then squatted next to her. “Are you in any pain?”

She nodded a little.

“Where does it hurt?”

She raised a shaking hand and put it near the right side of her face.

“Yeah, that does look like it hurts.”

It was a mess to be sure, and could possibly stand a couple of stitches, but it wasn’t life threatening.

“Where else?”

She pulled up the left side of her shirt, opened her mouth and trembled out a “here.” Her side It was scraped up pretty bad and bleeding.

“This is your fault!”

The big guy was walking over to the red headed girl.

“You hit Tyrone! He’s dead!”

Crap. Why does everybody need to make things worse?

I stood up. “Hey, D! I need your coat!”

He spun on his heels and headed my way. “What?”

“I need your coat.”

“You have got to be kidding me, fool. I don’t think-”

“Oh shut up.” I pointed at the skinny girl. “She’s in shock. We’ve got to lie her down and keep her calm.”

He stormed on over to me. His coat arm and pants had a little vomit on them. His burst of anger was probably just to cover up his weak stomach.

I crouched back down and took a closer look at the girl’s side and saw a shard of brown glass protruding from the wound. I couldn’t tell how deep it went.

“What’s your name?”

“C-Cour-C-Courtney.”

The big guy handed me his wadded up coat.

“Okay, Courtney. Let’s have you lay down on this.”

The wound in her side was bleeding. As soon as I got her fully reclined, I looked at it closer.

It was probably a piece from a broken beer bottle.

I pulled gently at the skin around the wound it didn’t look deep. Still, sometimes you can’t tell. I didn’t have an IV ready with blood or plasma, nor did I even have any clotting agents close at hand. If I pulled the glass and it ended up being deep and started to bleed much, there wouldn’t be much I could do. Still, it wasn’t likely to stop if I just left the glass in, so I took the chance.

A little flow of dark blood started as soon as the glass was out.

I rolled up the bottom of her tank top a couple of times and pushed it down on the wound.

“Just what the hell to you think you’re doing?”

I glanced over my shoulder.

The big gangster was already back on his way toward the first victim and the red headed girl. “Trying to kill him, too?”

In the small of his back tucked into his baggy pants I could make out the handle of a revolver.

I looked through the wreckage of the car. The three who had gotten out of the other car were looking in at the last victim. “One of you three get over here.”

What is everyone else doing? Just sitting in their cars? I took a deep breath. There’d be time to be angry at the other drivers later.

One of D’s friends came running over.

“You too freaked out to help?”

He shook his head.

“I need you to push down right here where I’m pushing. Until the bleeding stops. If there gets to be too much blood, you pull off your shirt and jam it on top. Got it?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

I stood and looked back in the car.

There was broken glass from more than a few shattered beer bottles. The other woman was still unconscious, but starting to move. Her left arm was jammed between the driver’s door and driver’s seat. It was most likely out of socket. Her nose was smashed and had bled all over her torso. But it seemed like it was too much blood to be from one smashed nose.

I half climbed in the car to get a better look.

Outside there was commotion. More yelling and more honking. I looked through the broken back window.

A little kid with red hair was charging D. “Don’t touch my sister!”

D backhanded the kid mid stride.

The kid crumpled to the ground.

I looked back at the last victim and saw where the extra blood was coming from.

A brown shard of glass protruded from the side of her neck. It didn’t look like it had severed the carotid artery yet-still not enough blood-but it had to be dangerously close. And wrong movement could push it through. And if she woke up, she would certainly freak out and make a wrong movement.

I’ve got to get her out of here.

Outside, people were yelling and getting out of their cars. D hitting the kid must have pushed them over the limit.

A UFO had passed over. The woman in front of me could very well bleed to death if nothing was done. The crowd outside was growing volatile. The entire world was going insane.

I’ve got to keep it together.

________________

Keep Reading! Chapter 10 is here.

Journey Of St. Laurent Update

The next chapter is almost done. It’ll be up over my lunch break or early tomorrow morning. Sorry for the delay.

The Self-Published Carnival #1

The first edition of the Self-Published Carnival is finally here! Thanks to everybody who submitted. I hope we can make this a great resource for self-published authors.

Self Publishing

Natalie Wickham over at Journey to Self Publishing took a humorous look at the Top 10 Reasons to Self-Publish.

Ron Pramschufer took a more serious look at whether or not it’s a good time to self publish. During these bad economic times, do you still think it’s a good time to self publish a book? He also gives a good step by step overview of what it takes to “traditionally” (not POD) self publish a book. This one comes from Publishing Basics.

Marketing/Promotion

Ten Great Ways To Promote Your Book – Each of the ideas on this list are worth at least a post of its own. Using #9 has generated more sales for me than anything else I have done to promote Oasis.

Peter Jones presents Marketing Your Book to Libraries: General Rules and Guidelines for Authors, Writers, and Publishers posted at Bauu Institute and Press. Getting my book into my local library system is now on my to do list.

Kathleen Gaga has been exploring using social networks for marketing on her blog Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions. She learned a couple of things not to do while getting banned from Facebook. Check out Confessions of a Facebook Reject! and I was banned from Facebook…but why? for the whole story. This month she also sought to answer the question Is Twitter useful or a waste of time for authors? She also sends out a warning. Are you guilty of annoying others via social networks? I get like four hundred Facebook invitation things a day. Most of which come from two or three people. If those three people ever had anything important to say, I’d miss it completely. I’m okay with someone sending an occasional request, especially if they thought about it and decided that I might actually be interested. I just don’t care what Mid-80’s hairstyle or which season 4 episode of “Friends” I am.

Jeanne Anderson also has some thoughts on using twitter. Is Self-Tweeting Selfish Tweeting? One Blogger’s Twitter Journey at The Writer in Me – Teaching, Writing, Living.

If you are interested in using twitter in your promotion, Kelly over at OnlineCollegeDegree.org pointed me to a list of 50 Useful Twitter Tools for Writers and Researchers.

There was another marketing idea about Using Webrings to Promote Your Self-Published Book over at Self Publishing Advice.

April Hamilton at Publetariat talked at length about the pros and cons of using Google book search. Her conclusion, and I agree with her, is that it is good to get your book in front of as many new folks as possible. Why Google Book Search Is A GOOD Thing For Indies

Alison had another good Facebook related idea with How to Create a Book Launch Party on Facebook | Christian Publishing Tips posted at Christian Publishing Tips.

Writing

Mind mapping is one way to plan out a book, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. Burak Bilgin over at Distiller’s Corner writes how to Explore Your Creativity with Mind Maps. I use XMind (free) when I feel like doing a mind map.

Self Publishers

Lulu vs. CreateSpace: Which Is More Economical For The DIY Author? – A while back I wrote an article comparing CreateSpace and Lulu. While surfing the net, I came across this great article also contrasting the two services. It’s well worth the read if you’re looking for a “free” POD self publisher.

Self Published Books

Here’s the word on a self-published book. Checking out what’s being done out there can give you a good idea of the quality you should shoot for, and maybe give you some ideas. If you have a self-published book, be sure to submit it for next month’s carnival.

• History Is Elementary presents a review of the self published book The Gift.

That’s all folks!

That concludes the first edition of the self-published carnival. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the self-published carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Call For Entries: The Self-Published Carnival #2

The first edition of the self published carnival will be out in a couple of days. Thanks to everyone who submitted.

Now it’s time to start gathering up entries for the second edition.

Submissions will close on May 31st, and the second edition will be out on June 5th.

If you don’t know what The Self-Published Carnival is, check out this post.

And remember – if I can’t figure out how you’re article or blog post could be useful to self-publishing authors, it probably won’t be included.

As with last time, you can submit via the blog carnival interface or by using the contact form here on the site.