Some Assembly Required

Make that “Some Maintenance Required.” I just spent most of the evening (and part of the morning) updating my ‘one-click’ OpenOffice templates. After I got them into production I feature-crept myself and added some new stuff to later versions. After my discovery of DriveThruFiction I went ahead and developed a new template, which gave me a really good reason to go back, retrofit and upgrade my previous templates. It was a chore and a half and I hope NOT to do this again soon.

As far as DriveThru goes, A Pattern of Details went live so we’ll see what happens next. I went ahead and uploaded Stone Blade and, with the templates, I have my other five ready to go.

I’ve also passed the halfway point on developing my game so it may not be long before I upolad it too. As soon as I know I’ll post.

Ciao;

-matt

Writing About Books: A Pattern of Details.

Grrr… I just had my first encounter with windoze 8 today. I hate it! Every time a new version comes out I think “There’s no way m$ can screw things up any worse. Every time they prove me wrong. So, to alleviate my frustration, I decided to blog about something I always enjoy. My own books! This is also semi-related to my “Writing on Writing” series and I plan to do more hand-in-hand articles. Interspersed, of course, with Java/MathTools news and missives from Dr. Kincaid, never fear!

———-

As do most of my books, A Pattern of Details began with a character. The main character of that book is, for lack of a more accurate word, a nerd. A geek. A stereotypical geek. Technician Morris Taylor is the absolute master of his craft. He is a proud member of the Technical Guild and totally devoted to what he does. He is also limited in his ability to interact socially with others. As is the case with so many, he tends to apply his analytic skills to his own perceived social lacks but, without positive experience, he finds no ‘optimal solution vector.’

The story begins with Morris ending his day too early to quit but too late to start another assignment. After an evening out with his best friend (also aTech) he receives an assignment outside the League teaching a class in the Halcyon Region. I can say from personal experience this is a traumatic event and Morris sees it as such. The Tech Guild motto, however, is “Will do!” so Morris accepts the assignment.

What follows is a series of similarly traumatic events wherein Morris is forced to interact with people on a closer and more frequent basis, some of whom are VERY attractive women (the most terrifying creatures of all to a shy, introverted male geek!). Being who he is, Morris manages to acclimate himself to the teaching routine and even enjoy it. Then, just when his life has settled into a predictable routine, chaos rears its ugly head.

The entire League team is recalled and, along with one of the Halcyon teachers and three grad students, sent on a mission well outside League and Halcyon space. Their assignment: conduct primary exploration and build a base for follow-up investigation of a just-discovered Imperium advanced base abandoned for thousands of years!

As the voyage progresses Morris and the investigation team begin experiencing accidents. The first is quite serious but none of the rest are, at least at first. As the severity slowly escalates Morris realizes there is a traitor among them! It then falls on his shoulders to discover this saboteur and keep the rest of them alive, all without telling anyone! The journey culminates with a live-or-die encounter in which Morris discovers that he’s not just dealing with a saboteur but a well-trained assassin!

I wrote the original to this story back in the 80’s and revised it mid-90’s. “The League” was a nebulous place, roughly corresponding to “The Good Guys” and the Halcyon Autonomous Region was, again nebulously, “A Place Away From Home.” Then, after multiple query-letter rejections, I elected to go the indie author route for publishing my books. I wasn’t sure how it would work and I didn’t want to potentially mess up my nascent series (Stone Blade, of which I’d already written the first story and several more), so I decided to re-re-rewrite APoD and retrofit it into the new League, about which I now knew a lot more.

Interestingly, A Pattern of Details fit its back- and forward-linking eminently well. It takes place somewhere between book 1 of the series (Stone Blade) and book 3 (The Radical Factor). I mention that because it represents a very important “Ah-HAA!” moment for me as an author. The fact that the stories meshed so well together, despite one having been written, originally, some thirty years ago (Dang! I’m OLD!), convinced me that I was meant to be an author.

Without a doubt, the thing I like best about APoD is its exploration of character motivation and perception of other characters. We see the universe, and hence the story, through Morris’ eyes and experience. He himself doesn’t realize just how much he’s grown until the end, when he has to look back and see it. It was also a chance to try my hand at subtle direction and misdirection, and my friends who read the book tell me I succeeded. I’ll take that as a compliment since they’re good enough friends to say “Hey, that’s crap!” if that’s what they think.

If you’re still reading, and interested, A Pattern of Details is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD in the format of your choice from Smashwords. (Shameless self-promotion!!) Of course my other books are also available, just not for free!

I hope you enjoyed this. More to come soon;

-matt
http://moldyripegrape.wix.com/newstarstradeleague
http://amazon.com/author/jamescoxjr
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesMattCox

Good News and Good

First of all, I decided to scrap my XSL-FO implementation for now. It passed the point of diminishing returns and I wasn’t even halfway finished, so it’s in cold storage. For now. I may revive it later for a minimal implementation, but later. Later.

I also released another MathTools version, this one with some bugfixes and polish added. I finished adding the original equations back into the MEquation class, so it’s the same as before, but adding MORE equations is now really easy.I also wrote an automatic equation document generating script, because I’m lazy. I then wrote an OpenOffice spreadsheet to generate the code for each equation, because I’m really lazy! Other toys and fixes are in Matt’s MathBlog at the Sourceforge site:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mattsmathtools/

Now for the really good news.

I STARTED WORK ON A NEW BOOK!!!

This is the one I couldn’t decide whether to go with something totally new or the stuff that worked for me so far. I’ve chosen the latter and I hope to have it knocked out, in rough, soon. After that, or perhaps if I get stuck, I’ll start my #6 rewrite. Either way, the creative juices are bubbling again and I am so happy about that!

Book sales spiked yesterday, so that felt good, but that was after three days of goose-egg. I finally decided that didn’t [profanity] matter, I’m going to write, even if I don’t sell a book for MONTHS! That does not preclude ideas I have for several other projects, so I’ll alternate as able. I am Groot!

Ciao for now;

-matt

XSL-FO: What’s in a name?

Book sales still down and I’m still on break. I’m still working on my XSL-FO tool and, I must say, the “Formatting Objects” abbreviation of the spec is TOTALLY apropos. It’s actually the fourth (fifth) XML-based markup I’ve added to MathTools. It comes after HTML, SVG, MathML, and MathTools private XML notation. BUT IT’S A MONSTER!!!

The basis of the problem is that I don’t have a good reference book to hold in my hands while I’m doing it. That means working straight from the W3C specification and that is, simply put, a NIGHTMARE! Still, I’m making progress. I’m also learning a lot. I’ve also developed a totally new utility tool. I call it Key-Value Reverse Connector and I developed it to help me match attributes with the tags to which they apply. So far so good and KVRC is a mighty nifty gizmo to play around with. The bad news (but not for ME) is that it won’t be available until the next release which won’t be soon.

Writing-wise, I’m still chewing on my next new (non-rewrite) story. I’m torn between same-ol’-same-ol’, which is fun to write, or the new idea that will stretch me as an author. Assuming XSL-FO leaves enough of me behind.

Ciao for now, I am Groot;

-matt

Tick, tock, whack the clock.

I don’t know what that title means! I have several disparate things to report so I guess any title is a good title. First of all, I just got my CreateSpace proof for Expedient Measures today. It looks good so I won’t have to adjust it any. Good thing since I always approve as soon as possible and correct later.

Book sales are still down and, with the publication of EM I’m taking a break. Of course I’m working on Java, and my MathTools.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mattsmathtools/

I completely overhauled the ‘MEquation’ class, which tool presents a way to generate tons of easily-solved basic algebraic equations. It all came courtesy of an blinding flash of obviosity and probably something I remembered from grad school. I call it The One Equation (TOE):

A(Bx + C) + D E

+ F =

G(Hx + J) + K M

+ N

Okay. Doing this with a table is kinda awkward but it works, after a fashion. The important thing is this: every type of simple linear equation taught in basic through college algebra is a special case of this equation! There are other types of equations, of course, but the smile ones like ‘3X – 7 = 8.’ Anyhoo, I reworked the entire class in such a way as to allow me to add new equations very quickly and very easily.

I’ve also decided to add a markup package for XSL-FO. I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. I’m also kicking around ideas for my next book and I’ll probably be starting the rewrite before long. I’ll report in when I do.

Ciao for now;

-matt

Multiple minutiae.

Not much happening, not a lot to report, so I’m cramming a hodgepodge into a single blog entry. Dr. Kincaid is graciously preparing some supplementary material for my next book so I don’t have anything new from him, but he’s got some things he wants to say and some more questions to answer for you.

In book news, Stone Blade #5 is almost out. Expect it sometime this week. My cover artist once again did an outstanding job and at the moment I’m putting on some polish. All I can say about the book is that politics can be hazardous to your health!

In MathTools news, I’ve added yet another thing to it. Roman numerals! It’s not a separate tool, it’s part of the ‘Arithmetic’ class, but it’s two methods on it. Well, one method and a convenience method. And some extra replacement tokens for Question’s ID formatting. The method itself can generate upper- and lowercase Roman numerals AND it can leave the number in additive form. Additive form means ‘IIII’ is not replaced with ‘IV’ or other such subtractive forms.

http://moldyripegrape.wix.com/newstarstradeleague
http://amazon.com/author/jamescoxjr
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesMattCox

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mattsmathtools/

In other book news, my sales are totally flat. They were crappy in January, worse in February and, so far, March is looking like the crappiest since ‘A Pattern of Details.’ It’s discouraging and depressing but I’m trudging forward. As the cliche goes, nowhere but up from here!

-matt

Unhasty hastiness. Or hasty unhastiness, either way…

This is a hasty decision for unhasty actions, or an unhasty decision for hasty action… I’m not sure which! Notwithstanding the hastiness or unastiness of the decision or the action, here ’tis. I’m starting the rewrite on Stone Blade Book 5. I know, I know… I said I was not going to start rewriting until January but circumstances changed. As of now my current plan is to rewrite until I exhaust all my stored-up stories. Then, when I don’t have any left in the wings, I’ll go back to new writing.

Make no mistake, this decision may change. Especially since it’s the result of a changed decision, but at least one rewrite WILL be rewritten. Truth is, I’m stuck on my current new story. Please note, I did NOT say blocked. I don’t believe in that, even in the most outrageous of circumstances when someone might have the audacity to suggest it applies to me. No, I know where the story is going and even (mostly) how it’s going to get there. I just can’t seem to settle on the fine details of it. So, in classic Matt tradition, I’m going to do something else until the path is clear, at least for a few more pages.

As far as SB05 goes, it concerns an election in the governments of Grakis Major. They’ve been League allies for a long time, and for almost as long a time the League has provided friendly and unbiased assistance in the form of data collection and dissemination for their elections.

Times are different now, though. Grakis Major’s economy is dire trouble, taxes are choking the vitality out of it and its citizens, overly-numerous unions and organized crime cartels are making things worse and there really is no good way for the government to survive without things going even worse. There is a glimmer of hope, though. One single charismatic candidate may have the force of personality to pull the citizenry through the tough times and into better ones… IF he can win the election.

I’ll be spending most of my effort on this, but I’m STILL going to take the time to blog and market my books, so don’t think I’m deserting you! Please note, I did NOT set myself a deadline for this one!!!

Ciao for now;

-matt
http://moldyripegrape.wix.com/newstarstradeleague

Expediency. Is It Worth It?

-sigh- I did something today I didn’t like doing. I’m looking into some additional distribution channels, more details later if they work out well. The downside is that I had to raise my book prices to ninety-nines. That means the prices went up from $3.01 to $3.99. $2.99 isn’t compatible with some and anything but X.99 won’t work on some of the others. I hate the crap out of it but still I did it.

Does that make me a greedy person? Am I the only one working through this? Am I going to have to juggle my prices AGAIN to get more distribution? If any of you have experienced this PLEASE leave me a comment!

-matt

The Five Century Mark

Wow. I am amazed. Earlier today my book sales went over the 500 mark! It felt wonderful to sell fifty. It felt wonderful to sell one hundred. Now five hundred? WOW! I am amazed, I am thrilled, but most of all I am GRATEFUL to the five hundred three people who think my books are worth reading and to the Lord God for the inspiration and persistence that made it all possible!

-matt

A New Pinnacle of Laziness

Two days ago, or more properly two nights ago, I attained a new pinnacle of laziness. Allow me to elucidate.

I use OpenOffice (3.1) when writing. It’s open source, it works well and it doesn’t crash regularly. And it’s not from M$ so that is always a good thing. Anyhoo, when I upload a book I need three formats: Amazon/Kindle, CreateSpace and Smashwords. For Kindle I use .mobi format, CreateSpace requires a PDF and SmashWords uses M$ .doc format. The twoo ebook formats have different ‘boilerplates’ and the paperback (CreateSpace) format is physically different. Besides the different boilerplates each format requires an ‘other books’ list (same for all) and the actual book content.

Prior to my epiphany I saved each book in each format, plus three basic templates. This required manually updating the ‘other book’ list which meant NINE edits for the ‘Double Bait’ release, TWELVE for the next book, FIFTEEN after that, etc. Unacceptable!! What’s more, editing the book content required the same edits on THREE books!

I didn’t do that, of course. I had a single source file I edited which I then copy-pasted into the template I prepared for each format. That ALSO required tab removal (ebooks) and re-creating the chapter breaks for the paperback. UNACCEPTABLE!!

This is when I discovered OpenOffice’s styles, sections and templates. Basically, styles represent a collection of attributes (font name and size, decoration, paragraph settings et. al.) applied to a part of the document. A section is exactly that: a specifically-named portion of a document. A template file, when opened, automatically changes to a standard unnamed document (TemplateFile.ott becomes untitled01.odt).

The epiphany is this: sections within documents can be LINKED to sections in other documents! This means that a section in the template file can be linked to content in an external file! Po-LARITY!! (As my characters would say.) It took but a little bit of tinkering (and a LOT of retro-fitting) to adjust my templates to automatically draw content from a SINGLE external ‘other books by me’ file! Awesome.

The second epiphany came in a blinding flash of the obvious. If I could do that with a book LIST then why not a book’s CONTENT? wow. Again, it took a bit of tinkering and judicious use of similarly named styles within each document and PRESTO! Instant auto-updating properly-formatted book files that take two clicks and a ‘Save As…’ to format! OpenOffice can save as a M$ .doc file and I use a separate program (Calibre) to convert .odf to .mobi.

Of course, I consider it EFFICIENCY!!! B-)

If anyone is interested in specific steps (more detailed than the ones above) let me know and I’ll post it here. If you’re interested in Calibre the web site is:

http://calibre-ebook.com

It’s open source (of course, of course), it’s REALLY COOL and it can convert into multiple ebook formats from just about any source format (well, at least any OpenOffice source format!). It also does ebook management and lots of other stuff but I use it for formatting.

-matt