Dealing with Invisibility (and This Week’s Coupon)

I get Gollum wanting to be invisible – he’s sneaky and (bless his devious, schizophrenic heart) a bit ugly (in a PRECIOUS way.) Frodo and Bilbo wanting to be invisible made sense – they always seemed to be trying not to be noticed. Whether it’s the Sackville-Bagginses, or the Dark Lord’s minions, giant spiders, or a certain recalcitrant dragon, they had reason to want to be invisible.

I do not understand the Klingons.

I don’t mean their language (yes, I admit I don’t speak Klingon, but that’s not what I’m driving at.) The Klingons are supposed to be a warrior class, always ready for (and longing for) a fight, yet one of their main pieces of military technology is their cloaking device – something that allows them to go unnoticed. It makes sense for the Romulans (no offense intended – you are what you are.) But for the Klingons?

You would think they would WANT to be seen, to even draw attention to themselves. They needed to develop some sort of reverse camouflage, something that would draw everyone’s attention, to say: “HERE WE ARE! COME AND FIGHT US!” I wish they had developed a device to do that – then I could steal the technology for my own use.

No, no, no! I don’t want to draw adversaries to me to do battle. I just want people to read what I write. You see (or maybe you don’t, since I seem to be invisible), I’ve been seriously at this writing bit for some time, and indie publishing for over three years now. I feel I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on the writing part, and think I do a nice job on my publishing. But the sales and marketing? What sales?  What marketing? All the research I’ve done to discover those devices have come to naught. I stand on a busy street corner waving my arms and shouting, but people don’t seem to notice me.

(Did anyone hear that? Maybe this thing is set on mute, too.)

If only the Klingons would stop sneaking around and build that secret weapon. What would they call it? Oh yeah – ADVERTISING! Whatever that secret is, I need something a bit more effective than standing here shouting:

“HEY! YOU THERE! BUY MY BOOKS!”

Just saying…

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This week, “Choosing the Right Time” is our couponed feature (our alternate timelines are not always the best way to go.) Here’s the smashwords.com link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/314454?ref=NoTimeToThink

Use coupon code EN52Q to save 50% off the list price at check out at smashwords. The coupon will be good through Monday, May 4^th. Enjoy! 

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For those of you who have access to the Kindle Owners Library through various Amazon programs, “Good Luck”, “Look Both Ways” and “Dead End Jobs” are still available for FREE to you – check them out on Amazon.

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, such as:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
• Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE 

Connect with him (and LIKE his Facebook writing page) at: http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

Or on his Goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893616.William_Mangieri

Why Do I Write? (and This Week’s Coupon)

Why do I write fiction?

1.     I write because when I arrived at a certain age (over 10 years ago), I decided that rather than treat it as a crisis, I would have a midlife renaissance™ instead. When I looked at the emptiness in my soul (well, it wasn’t THAT bad), I realized what I was missing was a creative outlet. Years ago – in my yute – I spent a lot of my time with musical instruments, acting into my twenties, and also some time writing and sketching throughout all that, but life has a way of overwhelming you with the URGENT things that make you forget about the IMPORTANT ones (thank you, Franklin-Covey.)

2.    I write to make extra money for my retirement (I’m hoping I’ll get to choose that retirement time for myself, but it doesn’t look hopeful.) The magic bakery concept means that each story I write becomes a perpetual investment, sitting on the shelf for me to sell again, and again, and again. I’ve built up a pretty good inventory – now, if only I could figure out the sales and promotion angle…

3.    I write to share, to entertain, to give others a needed change of pace, and hopefully get them thinking differently, if only for a few pages (and no, I’m not trying to moralize – at least not in my fiction; that sort of deliberate messaging kills a good story…)

4.    I write because a large (maybe the largest) part of my life is lived inside my head. It comes out in myriad conversations with others daily, an imaginative outpouring that is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”; there is no permanent record of it happening (or my passing.) Writing those thoughts down brings a certain measure of immortality to this “poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” (apologies to Shakespeare’s Macbeth) I’d like to do something worthy of being remembered before I speak my last lines.

What are you doing for your mid-(or wherever you are in)-life renaissance™? Hope you manage something memorable. In the meantime, help this old man out with his renaissance. Read! You’ll be surprised what you find.

Just saying…

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This week, “In Robert’s Memory” is our couponed feature (people living in virtual storage – so much of my life feels that way...) Here’s the smashwords.com link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/303581?ref=NoTimeToThink  

Use coupon code UT87G to save 50% off the list price at check out at smashwords. The coupon will be good through Monday, April 20^th. Enjoy!

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For those of you who have access to the Kindle Owners Library through various Amazon programs, “Look Both Ways” and “Dead End Jobs” are still available for free – check them out on Amazon

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, such as:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
• Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE

Connect with him on Facebook at:   http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

Or on his goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893616.William_Mangieri

How Little We Know (and This Week’s Coupon)

“… as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.” – Donald Rumsfeld

Last week I refreshed my Project Management foundation. Project Management is a formalized system of methodically planning what we need to do, and then executing on that plan (“Plan your work, work your plan”, as Nick Krul more informally reminded me.)  A lot of the emphasis was on the fact that we will never think of – or - more importantly – KNOW all the details of what we’re trying to do. There are KNOWN UNKNOWNS – the things that we know MIGHT happen, and that we can pseudo plan for. But there are always the UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS – the things that we don’t have a clue about except to know that they’re out there, and so we try to prepare for them as best we can.

Murphy’s Law summarizes this wisdom as “Whatever can go wrong will”, and although most people nod their heads and spout their own corollaries (“Murphy was an optimist”), the fact is that human beings have a tendency toward arrogance.

We think of ourselves as rulers of all we survey, and think WE KNOW EVERYTHING (after all, we were made in the image of an ALL KNOWING GOD, so why not?)

The fact is, no matter how much we think we know, we will never know it all. Physicists keep finding smaller and smaller particles, and the further they go with their explorations, the more the laws they’ve declared break down. TRUE SCIENTISTS KNOW that the unknown is the bigger part of life.

“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.”
― Albert Einstein

This is a healthy realization of our limitations, and acknowledging this allows us to update our understanding (and even scrap our previous theories) as more evidence appears. It is unhealthy arrogance to hold to a theory as evidence to the contrary continues to pile up – Anthropomorphic Global Climate Change adherents being one of the latest iterations of this failing.

On the social and psychological front, we like to think we know what’s going on inside other people’s heads – their thoughts, motivations, desires – and we’re quick to declare our certainty of this knowledge, usually to support our worldview (“Racially motivated” is a big one in this arena.)

Thinking we know the heart and mind of another human being is foolish if you are willing to admit that most of us DON’T EVEN KNOW OURSELVES that well (often, when asked why we do something, we rationalize as plausible an explanation as possible – but ultimately, we made the decision based on feelings.)

We assign reasons and labels to things as quickly as we can because we NEED an explanation – it helps us feel that everything is predictable and that we’re in control. But it’s foolish to stick to our unsubstantiated assumptions as their basis falls apart.

We can’t ever really know it all – the best we can do is live in the real world – see things for what they are (i.e., don’t ignore the evidence in front of us) and do our best to know (and admit) what we don’t know.   

Just saying…

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This is week two of “The Body” as our couponed feature (Yes, it’s a little creepy, but in a fun, Ambrose Bierce kind of way.) Here’s the smashwords.com link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/295815?ref=NoTimeToThink

Use coupon code VM27N to save 50% off the list price at check out at smashwords. The coupon will be good through Monday, April 20^th. Enjoy!

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For those of you who have access to the Kindle Owners Library through various Amazon programs,  “Look Both Ways” is now available out there for free – check it out at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VWEG5IO

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, such as:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
• Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE

Connect with him on Facebook at:   http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

Or on his goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893616.William_Mangieri

For the Sake of Doing SOMETHING (and this week’s coupon)

So – while I was on a business trip in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and not really paying attention to the rest of the world, a supposed deadline came and went for an agreement about Iran’s nuclear program (March 31^st, I believe.) I don’t know who decided that this date was important, but it was treated as though it was a life or death matter (until it didn’t happen.)

On April 2^nd, we have the announcement, trumpeted in the media, of an HISTORIC AGREEMENT (why on April 2^nd? April Fool’s Day would have been more fitting.)

So what is this agreement? Aside from being a bad deal (& no, I’m not going to analyze why it’s a bad deal – it’s obvious, and that’s not my purpose here), it is only a bad FRAMEWORK for a bad deal so we can continue talking until the next artificial (and meaningless) deadline.

The HISTORICALNESS (or is it HYSTERICALNESS?) surrounding this agreement has echoes of Chamberlain’s declaration of PEACE FOR OUR TIME after the Munich Agreement on September 30^th, 1938 (we all know that TIME IS SHORT: World War II started less than a year after that agreement was signed.)

To all appearances (this from our fellow negotiators) the U.S., desperate to have SOMETHING the Iranians would agree to, GAVE AWAY THE FARM to secure that agreement (with a regime that can’t be trusted) - just for the sake of saying “THERE! WE DID SOMETHING!” Now it’s time to barrel forward to the next deadline. Because deadlines are what matter – not what you do - just as long as you do it.

This wasn’t the only thing we could have chosen to do. We could have kept sanctions in place and piled on more to slow down their ambitions. We could have insisted that they stop all their funding of terrorism. We could have just said: “If you don’t stop chanting ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’, we won’t sign anything.” Or we could have bombed the living daylights out of them (I know – maybe not the best option, although we may ultimately have no choice, but it WAS an option and should have been held over their hate-filled, murderous heads.)

Or we could have chosen to do NOTHING and let the silly deadline pass. NO agreement is better than a BAD one. Much as refusing to give in to President Obama’s immigration demands and NOT passing legislation he wants is an act in itself.

The Republicans in Congress have been labeled (by their opponents) as DO NOTHING. Well, just saying NO and stopping a bad idea is doing SOMETHING.  And doing SOMETHING STUPID is not an accomplishment.

Just saying…

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This week’s featured story is “Sasqwhat?”, in which a teen goes through some unique growing pains. Here’s the smashwords.com link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/283890?ref=NoTimeToThink    

Use coupon code VD49Q to save 50% off the list price at check out at smashwords. The coupon will be good through Monday, April 13^th. Enjoy!

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, such as:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
• Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE

Connect with him on Facebook at:   http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

Or on his goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893616.William_Mangieri