LEARNING CURVE: Twists and Turns Ahead

I paid CreateSpace the money, cash on the barrelhead. 

It was worth every dollar to me, not to have to arm wrestle with some ridiculous piece of formatting when publishing my novel last year (2015). Beyond the Strandline is a 100-thousand word novel—with lots of words. (Yes, I know I’m being redundant. It’s absurd, and that’s why that’s funny.) 

The serious part of this discussion is that, one year after publication, I wanted to 1) replace one word in three places (thank you smart reader types) 2) correct one spelling error (not bad for 100 thousand words) and 3) add a small sub-heading to Chapter One (mostly for my mother-in-law).

What I learned on the learning curve of publishing: If you pay the CreateSpace team to format your manuscript they “lock” it. To make corrections you cannot submit changes on a self-service basis because it will send the system into a three-week, back and forth, telephone tagging, manager searching, frenzy of policy confusion. Yes you can. No you can’t. Call back on Monday.

You will NOT be able to make teeny-tiny changes to the manuscript without their help. Their help will cost an additional $79.00.

Good to know. Good to know. Now.

I liked having someone else do the formatting. I did. I really did. What I did not like was having no control over the finished product. But now I know, as I speed my way through the learning curve of 21st century publishing—also POD, PDF, HTML, HTTP, and other Babylonian mysteries. 

Linda (Curves Ahead) Zern

Amazon.com/author/lindazern
www.zippityzerns.blogspot.com 
www.zippityzerns.com 

Bonsai Kitten Boy

My youngest son, Adam, brought me a picture he’d printed from the Internet. It showed the squashed flat faces of kittens crammed inside glass jars and bottles. His eyes sparked with tears as he said, “This is so terrible. We have to do something about this.”

I took the picture and examined it. “What do you think this is, Sweetie?” Adam is my cat loving, tender-heart. 

“Can’t you see? They’re bonsai kittens. People grow kittens in jars so they grow deformed. It’s horrible. Bonsai kittens are just like those Japanese bushes.”

I looked at my teenaged child and thought about how to approach the subject of gullibility. He was well and truly upset. He was also well and truly duped.

I took it head-on. “Honey, think about this. How do you keep a little kitten alive inside a jar? Do you see feeding tubes? How about waste products? Or oxygen?”

But he saw what he saw, and seeing was believing. “Look!” He shook the pictures at me. “Look, Mom, it’s real.”

I tried again. “No. This is a hoax. Someone, somewhere, is laughing at your pain. Stop feeling and start thinking. You can’t grow a living kitten inside a jar into a jar shape. Think. How about a baby? Could you grow a baby inside a jar?”

I saw him struggle as doubts, questions, and reality filled his face—and then came chagrin—and now we were in truly dangerous territory. 

Chagrin is the slightly less ugly stepsister of embarrassment, both of which are close incestuous cousins of pride.

I tried to head off his wounded pride. “It’s really good photo-shopping. It is. It looks like bonsai kittens growing in weird shapes inside bottles. It does. But it’s not real.”

“Well . . . it would be a terrible thing if it were true!”

“Yes. Yes it would. But it’s not true.”

He shrugged and picked up his giant lump of a cat named Charlie and left the room.

For a long tortured minute, Adam was sure, and bonsai kittens were real—to him. 

WHAT I REALIZED: Reality is real. Perception is not reality, even when we are completely sure. Emotions are gut feelings, especially righteous indignation based on photo-shopped images of deformed kittens. Emotions can be full of the stuff that’s in our guts. Logic is a handy tool to have on speed-dial. Keep it real isn’t just a catchy slogan.

Bonsai kittens are not real.

Bonsai kittens are not real even if you are convinced they are real.

Bonsai kittens are NOT real even if a MAJORITY of Americans think that they are real.

So, in a week of swirling agendas, chasing the means that will justify the ends, I say, “Keep it real, my friends. Keep it real. And don’t let your wounded pride make ugly babies called embarrassment and chagrin.”

Linda (Kitten Heel) Zern

FYI: The word “Bon-sai” (often misspelled as bonzai or banzai) is a Japanese term which, literally translated, means “planted in a container”. This art form is derived from an ancient Chinese horticultural practice, part of which was then redeveloped under the influence of Japanese Zen Buddhism.

QUICKIES: POSTS THAT ARE SHORT AND SWEET

 . . . took a break from writing, went to pre-heat the oven, wandered to the porch, started to clip hedges in the rain, weeds beckoned, started to pull out tired zinnias, watched a car slam on its brakes when the driver saw what I was doing, went back to weeding, thought about how bad ideas are like weeds, thought about writing a blog on weed pulling techniques, remembered the oven, ran inside, was relieved to remember I hadn't put the biscuits in, went back to writing.