Author: D. L. Keur

How Not to Sell Me on Your Novel

Posted on by D. L. Keur

book_NotAuthors, really.notimpressed Do I care that you’re having a “huge sale”?

No. I’m not a bargain basement book shopper, willing to spend my time on anything that comes my way because it’s cheap or free.

I also don’t care if you’ve won some award or contest with your book. I know how contests and awards work from the inside, so I know that, chances are, the only reason the book won is for reasons that have nothing at all to do with its actual quality and value as good reading. Likewise with professional reviews.

Next on my list of “I don’t give a damn” is whether or not you made some best seller’s list or, worse than that, some “pop” list voted on by Joe and Josepha Public. BS lists are just that–bullshit lists–manipulated by skill and subterfuge, and “pop” lists rank even lower, being manipulated by cliques and back-scratchers.

What will convince me to buy your book? Good hook, good writing, and a riveting story I can’t put down, written in a genre I like…which is most anything that, A, doesn’t dwell in the dreary, disheartening, perverse, stupid, insipid, banal, and/or trite and, B, which lacks any descent into gratuitous sex, gore, and/or violence.

How do you catch me? First off, a good slag-line. Second, a good description. Third, a first page that makes me want to read on…and that continues to pull me along all the way through the excerpt provided by Amazon. Then, yes, you’ve just made a real sale, and, despite being a KU member, I will actually pay you your full asking price…because I believe GOOD writers should be paid.

Image by D. L. Keur with base image By Raúl Ruano Ruiz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22768706

Experiential Distortion

Posted on by D. L. Keur

by D. L. Keur writing as herself and/or one of her numerous pen names

02142016ExDistortSqStepping into the shower, she listens to the giggling in the walls, watches light refracting in the streaming spray, smells the fragrance of freshness. Tastes it, too. She closes eyes, lessening visual stimulation. While spatially disorienting, this decreases distraction.

Narrowing focus, she concentrates upon sensation. Sound and odors fade; touch, the lesser skill, can now dominate attention. She revels in sensation: tingling, stinging, punctuated hot; dripping, streaming flow sweeping all around, swirling at her feet. Immersed in movement of the stream, her mind explores vectors and trajectories.

“Raynie, did you take the garbage out?”

The sound explodes around her. The world spins, threatening to topple her.

She extends a hand, but can’t find ‘solid’.

Concentrating, she manages to still herself enough to hold stability, despite the violent buffeting of tidal swirls that threaten to upend her. She trues to that hold, but the effort is immense. Still, she knows it’s necessary. Doing less will bring unending queries and more violent disturbances.

With a will, she splits attending from single- to multi-dedicated focus. She seeks and finds ‘speech’, the least of her capabilities, but the one most critical to maintaining comfort levels within those with whom she shares experience.

The effort makes her breathless. She coheres the necessary communication from conceptual instance into distributed linear stream, making sure the energy within that stream congeals into: meaningful, simple, concise.

Once sure, she finds, then engages mouth and tongue, that finding and engagement also requiring of her immense concentration.

“Raynie?”

“No, Mom. I’ll do it when I’m finished showering.”

“Well, hurry up. The bus will be here.”

Dedicated concentration fractured, she struggles to stabilize herself as every sense goes overload. She struggles and, with a breath, just manages appropriate response—“Okay”—then she hopes that Mom will go away so she can regain control.

Silence answers, and, as the metasphere around her calms, the skirls and buffeting exponentially diminish until they become mere ripples dissolving into echoes as they fade off down the here-now’s timeline.

02142016ExDistortSq

Is Politics Your Only Criteria?  Really?

Posted on by D. L. Keur

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Someone I follow on Facebook posted a very cool image of Prez Obama responding in sign language to a deaf person’s sign-speak.  One of his followers/friends spoke out in astonishment that Tom and he were definitely on opposite sides of the fence, politically.  This should matter?  …It shouldn’t.  Not at all.  It was a post showing a wonderful very human moment that sets a great example of what should be.

(And, btw, I’m not an Obama fan. To me, he’s just yet another politician’s politician, unwilling to lay it on the line and stand up for what he believes when push comes to shove.  I don’t like wimps.  Not in my country’s leadership.  Neither do I like the fact that, the day he took office, he simply continued Bush’s policies.  Gone were the campaign pledges.  And then there’s the problem that the only people and lives he really cares about are city-folk, especially Black city folk.  That really galls.  As soon as he took office, wolves got the shaft.  So did the environment, in general.  Instead, what did we get?)

Lately on FB, I’ve been attacked and harassed for posting pro-Bernie stuff, pro All-Life stuff (as in that not just all human lives matter, but animal and plant life, too, along with the living biosphere).  Startlingly and viciously attacked to the point I blocked the worst offenders that started stalking me.  And it amazes me.

A lot of you who know me know that I’ve got a foot in two canoes, one heading right, the other heading left.  I’m not a moderate, by any definition, but rather have strong opinions on Constitutional issues like separation of church and state, the right to bear arms (and, yes, I mean civilians owning guns without being put on somebody’s watch list), capital punishment, anti-Affirmative Action (make everything based on merit, please), and the like.  On the other hand, social Darwinism and unfettered capitalism lead to a meaner, more vicious predatory existence for everyone.  I’m pro-choice, an environmental preservationist, anti-discrimination of any kind, and so on.  So you can’t call me a Lib or a Rightie, either one, because I’m both–legitimately both–with strong, solid rationales behind my positions.

Here’s the thing that bothers me about the U.S. and all the divisiveness going on–all of it sponsored by the power-brokers,with the specific and very effective intent to divide and conquer so they can finalize their enslavement of us:

Politics and differences of opinion, whether religious or social, should never terminate friendships.  Debate is good; differences of opinion and perspective are good;  Listen more; find alternatives that satisfy, as much as possible, everyone’s needs, and, even if you can’t, keep the lines of communication open and hands extended in empathy and good will.  Lose the us versus them attitudes. It will ultimately lead to everyone’s downfall, including yours.

JMO (just my opinion)