eBook readers!

Howdy all!

This has been an exciting week for me.  First off, I found all sorts of new gadgets on my blog that I added, such as a search, a view counter and you can now check a box at the end of each blog if you think the blog is (1) cool, (2) interesting, or (3) funny.  Sorry, if you think it was awful, no easy way out for you, you will just have to go out of your way and post that in the comments section. I would love to hear your feedback about these new gadgets.  If you like them, if you noticed them, that type of thing.

Secondly, I am trying a new thing, to post on a regular basis, every Friday.  For those of you in the Western Hemisphere, you know that didn't last because today isn't Friday, yet. Hey, rules are meant to be broken. Besides, yeah for me. I'm usually a day late and a dollar short. Anyway, one step at a time.  I'm just so excited about my new idea and can't wait one more day.

Some of you readers already know that I am working on turning Fish Tales into a book, a memoir.  It will be a collection of short stories of my ventures and mishaps commercial fishing.  The writing style will be similar to the blog (only I plan to have a professional editor on board to catch the typos!) and also will have a full night's sleep and hopefully won't be writing gibberish, unlike last summer when I tried to write after a fishing opener.  Turns out, I'm not a genius on only two hours of sleep, I just think I am.   At any rate, a few of these stories are already polished and finished and just sitting around collecting dust, patiently waiting for the rest of the book to be finished before they can make their debut.  Well, the stories may be patient, but I am not!  I want to get them out there for the world to read them!  I want this for a few different reasons.  Foremost, for your enjoyment. My dear reader as been hearing for over a year now that a book is in the works.  I feel that I should reward you with something for sticking by me this whole time.  I can't afford to buy you all pizza, so a story will have to do.  Besides, less fattening.

Secondly, as an unpublished writer (I guess I'm not an author until I'm published, but I think that's like saying you are nobody until some body loves you.  Hello, can we say co-dependent?) e-publishing is a good way to get some notoriety and gain a following.  Or, note if there is a lack there of and that I need to go back to the drawing board.

Thirdly, because I can.  The days of sitting on a gold mine master piece waiting patiently by the phone for a publisher to call you is over.  That's like waiting for a guy to call you.  I like to take the bull by the horn and create my own destiny.    I just learned of this possibility this week (not the possibility of taking the bull by the horns but about e-publishing one single short story. I'm slow on the uptake on all this technology stuff.  The manuscript itself is written in coal on stone.  I'm researching the different options of where to publish, like Amazon, Scribd., Smashword, iBooks etc.  I would love to hear any input on this or if you have any biases to any of these sites.  I'm finding, like most of life in general,  there are pro's and con's to each.  Also, I've created a survey that you are more than welcome to take (hint, hint) to see if people would by one single short story at a time.   It will only take about two minutes and is right here, if you feel so inclined. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K6SRQ8J. Huh, that didn't come up as a link, did it?  Did I mention I'm technically challenged?  Maybe that is why I like commercial fishing, we still fish the same way Jesus did back in his day.  You may have to cut and past that to get it to go somewhere.  I appreciate you taking the extra step and taking the survey.  Please feel free to join in on this discussion, which, without you, is just a mono-log. 

The Beginning

This is a blog about a recovering commercial fisherman writing about commercial fishing. Well, my experiences about fishing. Ok, a memoir about fishing. Except I hate the word memoir. Don’t ask me why. Ok, you can ask me but I can’t really answer that. I guess there are just some words that some people like. I once met a guy who hated the word Petri dish. Petri dish. That didn’t mean he didn’t like biology or anything, just that word. And I mean he really hated it. I sent him a made up joke one using it in the punch line (sorry, it was like 15 years ago and I no longer remember the joke) and he said he was so pissed he got up and punched the guy who was next to him. So, OK, I don’t hate the word memoir as much as this guy hated the word Petri dish, but it does grate me. I guess we have the French to thank for that. This blog will take you along my journey of writing my first book (unless you count the book I had to write in 7th grade, it was something about a banana with super powers who helped people, Banananman, but that doesn’t really count). So far, it’s called FISH TALES: something something (I’m not sure what yet). Again, puny. I know, what can I say, I’m a puny gal.
So, I’m not really sure how to write a book. Or get it published and actually have people read it. I mean, I have some ideas, but this is all a new experience for me. We’ll see how it goes. So far I have about 100 pages or so. But, well, I have 100 pages written in Word, size 12 font Calibri. I’m not sure how many pages that would add up to in a book. It’s a series of short stories from my days of living the dream on the high seas. It all started this spring (the writing, not the fishing). I was finishing up grad school and writing my professional project (aka thesis). I had done tons and tons of research and writing the previous fall. Then a few months before my project was due, I changed my topic. It must be the Aquarius in me. We can stop on a dime mid stride, change course, and never look back.
It started when my professor told me to follow my passion. This is great advice, but easier said than done. Follow my passion. Great. Ok. What are my passions? It’s a good question to ask yourself. What gives you energy, opposed to what takes energy? Well, I like writing. I like writing about traveling and fishing. (I should probably take the time to clarify one term I’m using: fishing. When I say fishing I mean commercial fishing, not sport fishing. I don’t sport fish. Not that there is anything wrong with it. Its just that catching fish one at a time doesn’t really do it for me. However, writing commercial fishing each time is a drag. Thinking commercial fishing is a drag. Hence, “fishing”. “Great” she said. “Traveling and commercial fishing”. (That time, it was my professor speaking, not me). “Write about commercial fishing. Everybody has travelled. I’ve travelled, we’ve all travelled, but we all haven’t commercial fished. How many woman can say they commercial fished?” Well, I’m not sure so I can’t really answer that. Besides, I think it was a rhetorical question anyway.
So, I did. That’s how I started writing about my experiences fishing. I wrote about my first time out and not knowing what in the hell I had just gotten myself into. I wrote about some of the beautiful sights I saw, the food I ate, the places I fished, the people I met, the times I though I was going to die, and the struggles I went through. I turned in my project and got an A. And, I had so much fun writing it. It actually did give me energy. I can’t really explain it, but I was happier then than I had been in a really, really long time, if ever. I still am. I like riding the happy wave. I would encourage you all to find your own passions and hop on the happy wave.