Reflections by Mary Anne Graham
This is a serious, if disjointed and insane, political rant from yours truly, the Angered One. If you get easily pissed off at political discussions and radical views and/or don't want to read that kind of stuff here, kindly turn back now. You don't have to read this.
...continue reading "Remembering September 11th, 11 Years Later – Let’s Talk REAL Terrorism"
Just got a review on Amazon for Dangerous Relations: Griffin's Law that called the book a poor copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey." It noted that the main character's name is even Grey.
First, if Griffin's copied "Fifty Shades of Grey" then my E.S.P. was really working overtime when I wrote the book. Griffin's was published BEFORE Fifty Shades..... So if I copied Ms. James work before she published it then -- DAMN, I"M GOOD. Hey, maybe Miss James book was a poor copy of Griffin's? (Just kidding, of course. It's a ridiculous claim - all the way around.)
Anyone who reads this blog knows that Griffin's is my TRIBUTE TO GREY'S ANATOMY. It doesn't copy the characters or the settings and is sort of like Grey's Anatomy in a Law School - so it has some "Paper Chase" thrown in as well. The book is intended to have the spirit and the ambiance of Grey's Anatomy.
And yes, you guessed it, the main character of Griffin's -- GREY Griffin -- is named "Grey" as a tribute to the show. Mind you, I love me some Fifty and Christian rocks -- but, like my book, the TV show existed long before EL James (Erika Leonard) blessed the world with her great story.
I'm sorry that particular reader didn't like Griffin's. My work is - as I've often said - a love it or hate it thing and it wasn't to that reader's taste. She has a right to her opinion ---- but the part about me copying "Fifty Shades" is just flat out wrong.
Yeah, I could've responded to the review on Amazon, but I feel that reviews are a reader's right and are not the proper place for an author to intervene. When I first published, I'd once in the bluest of moons try to explain something or make a helpful comment, but I only did that once or twice - a long time ago. I appreciate reviews. I adore my readers - even when they don't love me back - but I had to protest the charge of "copying."
I didn't even copy Grey's Anatomy in Griffin's. It's not much of a tribute if it's just a copy now, is it? Griffin's is MY SPIN on Grey's Anatomy so yeah - it's a lot like me: different, very, very, different.
But hey, on the bright side, if people think Griffin's is like "Fifty Shades" - that can't be a totally bad thing...
I read a fun piece on Huffpo titled: "8 Reasons Why Sex Is Better After 50." Having just turned 50 last month, I found the article interesting and possibly even - inspirational. (Be afraid, Mr. Duck. Be very afraid!)
The piece was written by Suzanne Braun Levine and it cited a study done by the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine and the San Diego VA Healthcare System. The 806 women studied were over 40, with an average aged participant being 67. The ladies participated in a larger study that has tracked the health of residents in a planned San Diego Community, Rancho Bernardo, for over 40 years.
Two Thirds of the women studied reported that they were moderately or very satisfied with their sex lives. Less than 3% reported that they always or almost always desired sex. The results mean that the women engaged in sex for a number of reasons including desire but more often to affirm or sustain a relationship. Many of the women who reported being very satisfied with their sex lies weren't engaged in active sexual relationships. They found sexual satisfaction through touching, caressing or the myriad other small touches exchanged throughout a long relationship.
A highlight of the study -- the proportion of women satisfied with their sex lives increased as the women got older.
Ms. Levine says she's talked to "hundreds" of ladies like those in the study for her books and she thinks there are 8 reasons why sex gets better for women as they mature:
1. They can separate sex from reproduction;
2. They can separate sex from love;
3. They can separate sex from sin;
4. They're more willing to say "what the hell;"
5. They're not riding the hormonal roller coaster;
6. They're motivated to discover new ways to have orgasms;
7. They've developed a more optimistic outlook;
8. Drugs like Viagra.
Levine makes the point that women in this range have passed "the reaches of conventional good-girl morality." She calls "this rule-breaking behavior the Fuck-You-Fifties." Women over 50 are risk takers who don't have to risk pregnancy to walk on the wild side. The author feels that the 50+ ladies have mellowed with age. They've learned to "sweat the small stuff less and cherish the moment more."
The Fuck-You-Fifties? If I'd known that, I'd have rushed to try to get here faster. It all makes sense to me, because when I was younger I worried so about what others would think about something I felt or did or said. Now that I'm older, I'm much more at home and at ease in my own skin. If I hear now that someone didn't like or didn't approve of something I think or said or did, my reaction is apt to be - okay, and why should I care? I've finally gotten smart enough to understand how right Popeye was - "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam."
Given all that, given how aging makes me accept myself - sags, bags, stubbornness and all - it only makes sense that like fine wine, sex gets better with age.
Now where is Mr. Duck hiding this time .......
Hi there! I understand you're the husband of E.L. James, who has enjoyed a bit of success recently. Congratulations!
As far as being married to a weird lady who writes about over-the-top romantic/sexual things you can't relate to, I feel your pain, bro.
My wife, much like yours, has been making a living most of her life by writing. She'd spend all day at the office writing, then come home and spend more hours writing her wild and wacky stories.
Darn it. Darn it all. Gigaom put on their swami cap and prognosticated about the future of e-books and I missed blogging about it. Oh, I saved it in my "to blog" list - but, I guess, the duck waddling in my head moved me in other directions. No matter - today is a good time to catch-up.
Back in January, Trey Ratcliff wrote a great piece for the Giga guys: "Why e-books will be much bigger than you can imagine." One thing that makes the piece so persuasive is its author's background. Mr. Ratcliff is a photographer who runs a travel photography blog called "StuckinCustoms." He must be good at what he does because a few years back a trio of publishers approached him about writing a book. He picked a publisher, got a $20,000 advance and wrote a book called "A World in HDR."
After the long haul of writing the book - a tough process as anyone who ever wrote one will tell you - he flew up to San Francisco for dinner with some big-wigs from his publishing company. They looked at him and asked him a question he never imagined. They asked: “OK, Trey, what are you going to do to market this book?” Ratliff says, "You could have knocked me over with a feather."
Yes, that's right quackers - the publisher expected the author to create and execute his own marketing campaign. And so he did just that. But it took scads of time and effort. For all that work, the publisher pocketed 85% and the author who spent so much of his own time marketing the book, made only 15%. After he added the numbers and weighed the effort, Ratliff started Flatbooks, an ebook publishing company that focuses on instructional books. His new business hit 6 figures fast, eclipsing his earnings from a traditional publisher.
In this era, Ratliff says:
It turns out that tech companies — especially Apple and Amazon — are the new publishers. And this is, of course, because their technology disintermediates all the component steps required for a physical book. We have all seen the numbers about the growth of e-books and how every category is impinging on the traditional book categories.
Ratliff says that even the rosy prognostications about the growth of e-books aren't actually rosy enough. Those predictions err, Ratliff says, because they anticipate that for every dollar lost to traditional publishing, a dollar is gained by e-publishing. That's off the mark because e-books are not on a one-to-one footing with traditional books. What's the correct ratio?
This ratio is actually closer to 1-to-2 because people are collecting e-books like nuts for the winter. They are easy to buy and download, much like music. And, frankly, it’s fun to fill up your iPad with a colorful, robust set of thumbnails in your library. I don’t know why this is a good feeling, but it is.
Add to that, Ratliff notes, the marketing multiplier of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Ratliff has a large following on all three and his authors do too. All of the followers of each feed off each other. "It is a hyper-networking effect.This kind of behavior just doesn’t happen when people walk into a Barnes & Noble. It’s a completely different way of marketing and selling things."
But as strong as the e-book business is, it is still just a ittie bitty thing - a toddler at best. Ratliff says:
It will evolve in many unexpected ways. There will be as many strange business models evolving as we see with music today. The marketing of these e-books will become increasingly social.
The spread of good books has always been a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Now, with social media, e-books are word-of-mouth-on-steroids.
Based on my experience as an e-book author and buyer, Mr. Ratliff's piece is dead-on. E-books are immediately available. When you read about one in a blog and it catches your fancy, the buy button is just a click away - and it's linked into the blog, tweet, comment or book review. No longer do you end up walking around a Barnes and Noble or Books A Million looking confused, and trying to remember the title of that romance you read such great things about.
E-books are cheaper than paper books and indie e-books are much cheaper than traditionally published books. In this economy, nothing sells as well as value. I have a first cousin who is a big used car wholesaler. He says that when the economy is good, the used car business is good, but when the economy is bad, the used car business is great. Indie e-books are a lot like the used car business, and more and more readers are giving work by new authors a shot and finding it a good bang for the buck.
And with bucks so scarce, don't we all have to get all the gusto we can from each purchase?
Maybe e-books aren't like used cars as much as instant grits. Like instant grits, e-books are cheap to buy, easy to read, and convenient to store. Plus, readers are blasted with tweets, Facebook posts and blogs convincing them to buy. So yeah, e-books have advantages that even Wal-Mart never imagined.
Given all that, e-books are a nuclear explosion waiting to happen. Can you imagine how large and how fast the e-book market will grow when the economy picks up? It'll be e-mazing, e-stounding and you know what? It's e-nevitable.
I had to post this quick news link. Fans of the blog know that I love EL James' "Fifty Shades of Grey" trilogy. So when I read news about a possible fourth book - I had to share it here!
Apparently, in conjunction with the film a "special edition" of the trilogy is being released this week. The linked Examiner piece says it will "offer some very exciting—and likely long awaited—sexy news to fans infatuated with a Christian Grey of their own."
The Examiner piece quotes a fan waiting in line to get Ms. James' autograph. The fan says she overheard a rep from Vintage Books - the 50 Shades publishing company - say that the surprise announcement contained in the special edition is that there will be a fourth book. The fan asked about it and the rep claimed that the book has been written and that he or she had read the first 5 pages.
Okay - (and, yes, I do like that word for all ages - sorry, digression based upon some recent reviews of Faerie) - but OKAY - it's not the most reliable source, but the Examiner printed the story, so they clearly felt that the account jived with the hype about the special edition.
The Examiner piece asks fans to speculate about the title for a Fourth "Fifty Shades." Well, that woke up the duck that waddles on the treadmill that passes for my brain, and I started thinking about it. If I were EL James - I have to pause for a moment, at the joy of imagining that one of my books will catch on a tenth or a hundredth as much as hers' have. So, if I were EL James - once I recovered from my champagne/Vegas/Godiva spree - I'd title the Fourth Book either:
"Fifty Shades Legacy" or "Fifty Shades Consequences" -- or perhaps -- "FIFTY SHADES REVEALED." Eventually, one of those prior subs - or more likely several - were gonna talk, right? And Christian's family - especially his little sister Mia, she might find the S&M lifestyle exciting enough to explore. How would Christian feel about that?
So yeah, I say, "Fifty Shades Revealed" for the fourth book title. What do y'all think?
Recently, I read an interesting article in the Huffington Post about a survey focusing on dating issues in the over-50 set. The survey was conducted by OurTime.com, an online dating site for singles over 50. The survey found that one of the biggest taboos across the board for 50+ daters was health issues. About 64% said they would refuse to date someone with health conditions. I find that surprising and very, very sad. I'd expect better from folks over 50. Do they all plan to join monasteries at the first sign of stiff joints, high cholesterol, heart trouble or diabetes? Apparently so!
More over 50's were open to dating someone they felt was "less attractive" (68%) then were singles under 35. I hope that's because the over 50's realize that the less-attractive person they're "slumming" with may feel that they are doing the same thing. Beauty is a personal scale and older daters should know that one person's ideal may be another's horror show.
The survey said that over-50's are more likely to play the field than are under-35's. I think that's because older singles have learned that keeping a laser focus on each dating partner is the worst way to find a mate. In fact, over 50's have learned that looking for a mate is the worst way to find one. They're smart enough to just look for people to date that they can have fun with, whereas younger folks often commit so hard to each dating partner that they send the partners running for the hills.
Some issues were weighted according to where the singles' lived. For example, 70% of the over-50's were willing to date someone of a different religion as compared to only 56% of those under 35. And religion as a criteria was much more important to folks from the South and the West than to folks from the Northeast. On the other side of the scale, but still with a regional flare, is politics. More under 35's (66%) were open to dating someone from another political party than were over 55's (60%). And 75% of those from the Northeast would date across party lines as compared to only 50% of those from the South.
Those numbers get flipped when the issue is race. More younger folks (75% as compared to 46%) are ready to date outside of their own race. And the numbers flip again when the issue is snooping on a dating partner by checking text messages and the like. More older folks (75% as opposed to 63%) felt that it's bad form to snoop to try to confirm suspicious behavior. Cheating is more acceptable to older men than older women (53% to 35%)
I think that the fact that more older than younger people are willing to date those from other religions is due to the older folks having learned that good people and bad people can be found in every denomination. But "good" verses "bad" in terms of acceptable morals or behavior is very much a sliding scale, whereas fundamental beliefs that make us who we are don't adjust as easily. That's why I think older folks are less likely to date outside of a political party. Liberal verses conservative is a fence that's apt to be too high to scale over the long term.
Like I said, I found this survey - and Huffpo's run-down of it, fascinating. To me, it says a lot about how much we all learn and grow and change as we journey through our lives. It also makes me more determined to hold on tight to my darling hubby (although he'd tell you I held on too tight even before I read the survey). There wasn't a category for how many older daters would take on an over-the-top duck lady, but I suspect that's because I snagged the only man crazy enough to do that!
There's an amazing piece up at Forbes about publishing and the indie revolution. It's written by David Vinjamuri - a NYU professor/social media & marketing guru/traditionally published/soon to be indie - author. I even love the title: "Publishing Is Broken, We're Drowning In Indie Books - And That's A Good Thing." It assesses whether indie publishing is a good thing or a bad thing and evaluates publishing in the wake of the indie revolution - where we are, how we got here, and where we're headed. It's a thorough piece and well worth reading and considering.
I was struck most strongly by the section that gave the "low down" on whether indie publishing is good or bad for authors. And I do mean "low down" because the piece quotes authors who should be supporting - even cheering - for the success of other writers. They're not cheering - no, not at all. Some of the most successful authors in the business are demeaning and deriding their colleagues' work. What's that about?
Vinjamuri quotes Brad Thor, a bestselling techno-thriller author, as saying:
The important role that publishers fill is to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you’re a good writer and have a great book you should be able to get a publishing contract.
But in calling indies chaff, Thor was being kinder than some of the other bestselling authors. Sue Grafton, whose work has hit the NYT list numerous times, said the following about indie authors:
To me, it seems disrespectful…that a ‘wannabe’ assumes it’s all so easy s/he can put out a ‘published novel’ without bothering to read, study, or do the research. … Self-publishing is a short cut and I don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to the arts. I compare self-publishing to a student managing to conquer Five Easy Pieces on the piano and then wondering if s/he’s ready to be booked into Carnegie Hall
...continue reading "The Best Assessment Of The Indie Revolution I’ve Ever Read"