When Sue told me, “The difference between an unknown writer and a successful writer is discovery”, I wasn’t paying much attention. If you must know, I was thinking about SCREAM QUEENS, the television show, and Sue had already revealed she was one episode ahead of me – so I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.
 
She repeated her line, adding the obvious: there are more writers publishing every day, some good, some bad, all the flavors in-between, and the most successful authors aren’t necessarily the most talented of the bunch. The popular writers are the ones who promoted themselves most effectively. They are the ones who are getting discovered by readers.
 
I knew Sue was absolutely right, but why was she telling me? She already knows that book promotion is my kryptonite. I largely avoid the whole social media thing. My idea of promotion is…well, this tiny website.
 
“If you want Sixth Brother to get noticed, you have to get it out there,” Sue told me.  
 
“I told people when it came out!” It was pretty much one entire blog post. Plus, shortly after publication, Amazon sent me an unexpected email, asking if I wanted to let my fans know about the new story. I wrote up a short message about the series and sent it to the Powers That Be. I still don’t know what they did with it. But something, certainly. Unlike me, Amazon is all about the social media thing.
 
As far as I was concerned, we were doing okay. Sixth Brother recently received its first review; and thank you, wonderful person whoever you are, for being good enough to share your thoughts, it meant a lot.  Plus, our mailing list grows by a few more subscribers every week. Score!
 
“Score?” Sue looked amazed I was happy about this. “I mean, good about the mailing list, I guess. But there’s so much more for you to do. The least, the very least you can do, is to add your book listing to your own website.”
 
“Oh.”
 
I knew then that Sue had done something I hadn’t, not for months:  she’d checked Books and Such, the second page on this site. Focusing on my weekly blog post, I’d mostly forgotten the Books page.
 
It turns out, I’d also forgotten to add 6th Bro’ to our list of publications. Then I discovered I hadn’t added Belle, Book and Kendall when it came out, or Twisted Games when it arrived, either. I’d also forgotten to show the translated pieces we have out there. I’d somehow neglected to show the six shorter pieces we have for sale in places that aren’t Amazon-centric.
 
So Sue was right. No score.
 
It had been so long since I’d visited Books and Such, I’d forgotten how to add new listings. So I swore to do better, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work. Struggling to make things come together, even though Weebly is a simple drag-and-drop system, it took me 135 minutes to place just two of the missing titles on the page. Dividing the page took ages and, even when it finally worked, I didn’t quite know how it happened. When I tried to add the next two titles, everything got screwed up again.
 
So I abandoned the project and went to watch SCREAM QUEENS on DVR, instead.
 
I have to get better at this.

(Spoilers do NOT follow. Not intentionally, anyway.)
 
Sue wanted to know if Glynn and I were doing anything special this week, so I told her, “We’re seeing Crimson Peak.” I said this excitedly.
 
She said, “Ah,” in that kind of significant way, where there’s some hidden thought lingering behind the sound. I soon discovered that she’d already seen the movie. She was there when it opened. She said the theater was packed, the crowd was excited, it was exactly the perfect setting for a big budget flick. I asked her what she thought of the picture.
 
Sue said, “Meh.”
 
“Meh?”
 
“I wanted it to be something else," she told me. "But you love these gothic things. You’ll probably love this one, too.”
 
I hoped she was right. Glynn follows Hollywood production stuff  – he’s a man of many interests – well, that’s not exactly right, he’s a man of primarily five interests, but Hollywood's movie industry is one of them – and when he told me Guillermo del Toro was making a gothic ghost story, starring Tom Hiddleston, I immediately told my sweetie we were going to see it. Not as a Redbox rental, not on Netflix, but in a real theater. There was to be no doubt about this.
 
How could we not see it? Guillermo del Toro directed Pan’s Labyrinth (it’s in Spanish, with subtitles, and if you like horror pictures but haven’t watched it yet, you should watch it soon) and Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (both in English, Spanish subtitles available, and if you like superhero pictures but haven’t watched these two yet, you should watch them soon). Plus the lead actor was Tom Hiddleston, the best and sexiest Loki there has ever been, adorable in real life…if I can trust what I’ve seen on YouTube, and I suspect I can…and a man who appears to have been born to be the star of a gothic ghost story.
 
(If you're wondering, no, I don’t know if anyone else has ever played Loki. Nor do I care.)
 
For me, Crimson Peak was going to be THE movie of 2015. Now that I’ve bought my tickets, put aside my writing, and shushed the loudmouth sitting one row in front of me, I can tell you, Tom H. is as good as I’d hoped.
 
But the co-writer/director of the thing? Guillermo, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.
 
I didn’t care that CP’s running time was a little long. Yes, the movie moved slowly, but I could deal with that. It gave me more time to enjoy the sights unfolding in front of me. There was no chemistry between the two leads, which I completely blame on the lead actress because Tom Hiddleston. I was willing to accept that, too. The setting was wonderful and the visuals were amazing. But the story?
 
The story was sacrificed for those amazing visuals. I’ve promised NO SPOILERS, so I’ll stick to that, but about fifteen minutes into the film, a character said something that sounded cool but didn't make much sense.
 
I whispered to Glynn, “What she just said is nonsense. Isn't it?”
 
“Try to enjoy it,” he whispered back.
 
But then something else a little off happened. The setting – gorgeous – made me shake my head. Not later, but at almost the moment of introduction. The lead character’s motivation is suspect. (What was the price of clay in Victorian England, anyway? It’s an important plot point but I’d wager the two screenwriters never checked.) Occasionally, the movie's characters abandoned logic for dramatic effect. Other times, logic was sacrificed for visual effect.
 
The story didn’t hold.
 
As a writer, I believe story is paramount. As a reader, I think the same thing. As a movie-goer, I had Tom Hiddleston to distract me…and, to my surprise, he wasn’t enough.
 
What did you think?

Isn't that what John Denver told us, once upon a time? "Some days are diamonds / some days are stone" -- which has always bugged Glynn because (and he has shared his wisdom more than once), diamonds are stones and...well, I don't care, I just enjoy listening to the song. I imagine Glynn would prefer it if John D. had sung, "Some days are diamonds / some days are stones of little or no commercial value" but it would have been a bear for the songwriter (Dick Feller) to have made those lyrics work. Interesting, yes, but I'm fairly confident there would have been one less gold record on Dick's studio wall.
 
Today, however? Not a diamond. Let me share.
 
The backstory: When it comes to Babelcube, we've recently been experiencing days of little or no commercial value. Our World War Zelda was translated into Portuguese recently by the amazing Karla Marques V. The novella was made available to multiple outlets but has found very few readers. WWZ is a mostly science fiction story centered around the perfume industry...and when's the last time you saw that in a story description?...with zombies and a dark (but sexy) conclusion and the English-version has yet to find an audience, either.
 
I absolutely understand why. What I didn't understand is why Karla Marques V. wanted to translate it in the first place. Zelda is nobody's idea of a sure moneymaker. But when she approached us again, wanting to do a Portuguese take on Twisted Games, well, that I understood. The story has drifted down the Amazon rankings these days but it sold quite nicely on release. If the crowd in Portugal wanted a hot shape-shifter romance with a mystery at its core, TG absolutely fit that particular bill.
 
So we agreed and contracts were signed. In short order, Karla had done her thing. Before Babelcube could publish the Portuguese take on Twisted Games, they needed our approval. Because I was buried in our current writing project, this meant Glynn had to go over the piece by himself, page by page.
 
Glynn will tell you, he has no affinity for foreign languages. Honestly, there are times when he isn't all that good at English. On the other hand, he's been practicing Klingon, so we'll always have that to put on the resume. The task took him hours and hours, not always the happiest hours, but he finished the job. He said Karla had done a lovely translation once again, then he said he'd already told Babelcube to go ahead and publish, then he said, "This has been the longest day of my life", and "Thank goodness for Google Translator", and "I need a beer".
 
How I wish I'd purchased a six-pack of Warnog, the Klingon beer. It would have made Glynn so happy.
 
With this blog post, I was going to encourage the world at large to rush out and pick up Jogos Perigosos: Um Misterio Paranormal but things didn't work out. Some days aren't diamonds, remember? JP:UMP has hit some mysterious glitch, keeping it from reaching the usual channels in a timely fashion. Babelcube wrote to tell us, asking that we fix " ----- " and send the novella out again.  Unfortunately, " ----- " means nothing to us. You can't fix what you don't understand.
 
We'll get this straightened out, sooner or later. Babelcube can mess with us all they want but I'm pretty certain that Karla Marques V. won't tolerate such nonsense. I'll let you know.

So Tuesday wasn’t my best day.  Not that today is such a swell day, either, since I seem to have lost my internet connection. I live in a not-big town up in the mountains and our internet service is fairly spotty. Right now, it’s gone away again.  Who knows if this blog will get posted?
 
Anyway. So the Good Witch’s mother is in town, visiting, and I made the mistake of stopping by on Tuesday. Mom – a/k/a, the Bad Witch – has let it slip (more than once) that she doesn’t read my writing, has never seen my website (although she loves the All About the Real Housewives site but I go there, too, so I can’t act all snooty), and is generally unimpressed with my Authorial presence. So I was surprised when she asked, “So where do you get your ideas?”
 
I hesitated before answering. Not because I couldn’t answer, only because the Bad Witch was the one asking. While I was puzzling over my response, she said, “Hasn’t anyone asked you before?”
 
“No.”
 
She smirked. She does that more often than she thinks, and it’s not a lovable habit. Then she said, “But I thought real authors were asked that question all of the time.”
 
“I thought so, too,” I said, forcing a smile. “And wouldn’t you like to know where Stephen King gets his ideas?” Then G.W. entered the room and her mother decided to play nice. I went home, fuming at the Bad Witch and wondering where Stephen King got his ideas.
 
So I Googled it and King's official website gave me the answer: “I get them from everywhere.” (Oh, he said more than that – go to his site for the full scoop – but it just wasn’t as Stephen King-interesting as I expected.)
 
Neil Gaiman says he used to give not-so-funny answers but, now, he just says he makes stuff up. (If you go here, you’ll see the not-so-funny answers he used to give.)
 
I couldn’t find the “Where do you get your ideas from?” question for Nora Roberts -- I’m sure it’s in the electronic void somewhere, if only Google hadn’t played hard to get -- but I lost a good half hour reading the other things she said. She’s an interesting interview, that Nora R.
 
Then I thought, what if it’s not a Google glitch? What if no one has ever asked N.R. where she gets her ideas? It’s unlikely considering the length and success of her career, but what if it never actually happened?  I know what I prefer to believe. That being the case, if B.W. ever asks again, I’ll tell her, “Nora Roberts and me, we don’t divulge such things.”
 
(Oh, I can't keep a secret from you. Not you. It’s elves. Lightly-freckled elves from Blucksberg Mountain, South Dakota. For a small quarterly payment, they bring me the different ideas I use. But don't tell Nora. Let her think I come up with the stories on my own.)