Kindle is King and ahhh...Walker

Finally, I am on a level playing field with all the major writers as I am taking up just as much space on the Kindle Shelf as any other author, no matter the name. Thanks and praise be to Kindle. Honestly, every chance I get, I push the Kindle reader as every time a Kindle dedicated eReader is sold, I hear a Ka-Chinging in my ear. I have posted posiive on Kindle on my facebook, pushed it one twitter and on chat groups as well as my blogs. Definitely, the thing for all of us to do - just as we should all be pushing LITERACY...


The Kindle has reKindled more readig in America than any other device known to man in modern times. Just recently, I pushed on an article that explained that the kinde is the top selling gadget of all gadgets that people WANT - such news is good for us all.

Frankly, after working with some 8 or 9 different publishers and as many agents over the years, guess who has been my best partner in crime and books? AMAZON, yes, and I kiss the ground CEO Bezos walks on as he, more than any publisher on the planet, had done more for WRITERS than anyone anywhere. When did an Indian like me (part, very small part Cherokee) ever get such a great "contract" or Treaty from a white man? A 70/30 split favoring this Mississippi born hybrid? WOW and come on!

Plus, and this is a huge plus with anyone who had gone the rounds with NYC publising -- plus I can't reject myself! I send it off to my publisher, who is  now ME, and I get special treatment - last five book length works, no rejection, no returns to speak of, and no remainders! No 'special events' or 'special sales' for which I earn nada, zip.  No waiting on a vauge, questionable royalty check filled with mysterious bookkeeping that revolves around an antiquated system of withholding author payment on basis of the dreaded RETURNS. No waiting a year and a half to see the book take shape and get 'clothes' and back copy and pricing while you have no say-so in any of it.  Gone are those days.

In point of fact, there are so many pluses to becoming an Indie author that I placed up my last five titles without the bother of taking them again to an agent or a publisher, washing my hands of the entire system and replacing it with me, myself, and I.  A dream come true for this ol' country boy.

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/
http://www.1stturningpoint.com/
Find me on Twitter, facebook, KDP

Titanic 2012 - The Launch of an infamous ShipWreck!

TITANIC 2012 - Curse of RMS Titanic  is now officially up at the Kindle store shelves at Amazon.com/Kindle store  or simply do a search for  Titanic 2012 and it'll pop right up. Two great reviews are up on Kindle already and the book is selling briskly. For a look at an indepth review of our baby -- come see the baby!!!  At:  http://www.amazon.com/Titanic-2012-Curse-RMS-ebook/product-reviews/B0049U4CCE/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Way ahead of the year-long schedule I had set for myself, the book debut just this past Sunday, last day in Oct....just under the wire for Halloween.

I wish to thank each and everyone here who followed the evolution of the book - to see how I personally Cook a Book.

Thanks for your continued patience and frienship....but ain't that what it's all about?

Rob Walker

Movin' On @150pgs/Contest Ongoin' Too/VOTE

Hello all -- has been much smoother sailing but I know I need to go back and do a lot of rewriting yet even so; when I do not wish to stop in mid scene because I cannot recall a person, place, or thing....as in the complete name of a character (hey, it happens) or the detail I need, a certain number say of lifeboats aboard or number of survivors, and I don't want to stop the flow of creative jucies coming through, I insert a big, fat capital X. Later, I clean up my X's when I am in editing mode; this savs a lot of grief and time. I can put a Titanic Timeline beside me or on the screen and go seek out the Xs via Replace and boom-boom-boom shoot them down like ducks in a row. I like to catch these up every ten or so chapters, and yeah, I am into Chapter Ten now! Feeling pretty good about that. Next installment remind me to write about breaks...scene shifts, how to set them up.

To date, I've continued with the order of one chapter Past, one chapter Future as the present in the story is 2020. It is a challenge to make each story as enticing as the other, and as I have said, I love to challenge myself to reach further, and this is certainly dragging it out of me.

There is another bit of business I'd like to share with you all, and that is under the heading or umbrella of X.... see, forgot but I know where I left that info., so I will go look it up and be right back.

Meanwhile here is the complete list of suggested BETTER titles than MINE for this novel; as you recall, I was using the wokring title PlagueShip Titanic and was never married to it, so I set up this contest to name that book. At this point, I may begin to ask folks to VOTE on the best title here in this list and so have something more than my mere subjectivity in making a choice. A kind of poll to help me out. Here are the titles so far (still have a few days of March left should you wish to leave a comment with your suggestion on the title and win a copy of Dead On and ack. page mention in the Titanic tome).

List is here:

Ransom Aboard
Ship for Ransom (Ship of Fools is already taken)
Titanic for Ransom
Death for Ransom
Hull Hell
Blown Ballist (sorry my friend, but I think this is funny)
Sea of Corpses
 --from which I extrapolated - Sea of Shoes (just kiddin' of course)
 --from which I extrapolated - Sea of Sacrifice and Sea of Ice
Raising the Dead
Dead at Sea
DoomShip
 --from which I extrapolated GhostShip
Pestilence Aboard (need an exterminator?)
Pestilence Passage
Pestilence Passenger
Pestilence Watch
Plauge Watch
*special suggestion - do as Prince does, no title, a Symbol only
Violins Played, Death Danced
 --Deah Dances to Violins maybe?
 -- Violins & Violence
Splinters of Fate
 --Shards of Fate maybe?
Curse to Forever
 --Curse of the Titanic
Karmic Voyage (after all J.P. Morgan was aboard)
Escape Titanic

I know how I am leaning, but I promised to keep the contest open until end of March so there may be more titles to come. Do not worry about my extrapolation titles for if I were to decide on a title extrapolated from one suggested, the winner is same with all the rewards! As his/her title was the catalyst for the idea.

Now I recall the craft issue I wanted to take up:  Notice how I did not talk about doing an outline but rather leapt into Chapter One from the get-go.  Know why? Go to the head of the class. I do not myself write up an outline or keep character cards, or do any of the prelim suff save research and note-taking. Not a good idea for everyone.

I will briefly discuss why I choose not to do an outline and why it is fine for some, not for others to do outlines. Much of it has to do with how we are wired differntly and the level of experience with organizing a novel. If it makes you comfy to do an outline and keep cards, etc., by all means go forth in this manner; I respect anyone who can put a novel together in any manner he or she can.  For me it gets old fast such prelim steps to writing, and for many people it kills spontaneity and again for me once a story has been told, even in outline, it can't help but get old for its author. But beware. Know thyself. If you have put together outlines and character cue cards and gone that whole nine yards only to never get the novel written, then this is not a good method or practice!

Use the practices and methods that appeal to your creative side, and remember a novel is not a spread sheet. I build it scene by scene and while I have a general notion in my head of where I am gong and where I want to end up, I like NOT to know what's coming next from page to page, scene to scene. I prefer an organic mehod or approach, allowing Chapter Two to have evolved in a natural progression from Chatper One and so on.  Of course it is Writing Without a Net....and of course you will write yourself into a corner here and there, but writing oneself out of said corners is part of the challenge and excitement of writing for me...and I emphasize for this author. There are  many mystery writers who write the last chapter first and write TO it.

I have never done this and it sounds like a logical way to work, but for now I do not know exactly how things will turn out in PlagueShip Titanic except that I know the Titanic will go down in the one story of the retelling of Titanic in 1912, and that someone will wina and someone will lose in the futuristic story in 2020 but at the moment I don't know if good or evil will prevail or if the creature is someone we trust in the early chapters.

Thanks so much everyone who has submitted titles. Earlier posts have gathered in titles as well. I have gathered them all together and if you wish to VOTE on a particular title or suggest additonal titles to bolster your chances, do so via comments here as it helps me keep them in order. Hope no ones done got their feelings hurt with my jocular remarks but that's just who I am. Nothing bad intended.

Thanks again and I hope you're finding the journal interesting. Can I  finish this book by Feb. 2011?  I mean polished and ready for an editor?  I have hopes that I have not fallen too far behind this goal.

Professor Rob

Contest to Name my Next Book ongoing/Hit page 100

Want to remind everyone that a free hardcover edition of Dead On is yours, signed...signed by moi....for a mere comment left here on a better title than mine, PlagueShip Titanic, my working title which I am not so happy with....Also the winner gets his or her name IN the novel on the acknowledgment page for Naming the Novel. That's a double win!  Competiton is so sparse anyone might win at this point!  Keep those comments coming in; contest rules - there are none!  It is that easy!  Contest continues throughout March and if nothing better comes through the door it may be extended but hoping NOT.

Now as to progress on the novel; I have recreated the lost pages from memory, and while not word for word, I have the scenes back and intact. Happy camper but it still took a chunk of time to rewrite from my head!  So I am out a couple of weeks and due to the slow start am behind a month so must annoounce now that I am not going to make the first deadline of a rough draft in three months.Darn it's going to take four at least. I am so pleased however with the way it is going that I forgive myself.

It is not unusual to have rocky road problems at the outset of getting a novel underway, getting those first scenes--establising people, places, and issues or themes down on paper; it is why we call it a rough draft. The real work comes in rewriting these opening scenes until every pore in your body is shouting YES, that's wha I'm talking about! Hitting page one hundred has that effect on me.  Getting to that first hundred in writing a novel tells me the book can and will get done.

I was right to interweave the Past story chapteers with the Present story chapters sooner as it helps to compel the pace along for each separate storyline. First time around, I had two chapters opening with the Past story followed by two chapters of the Future story (or modern day tale). But giving it further thought, I deicded to tighten and cliffhang each storyline better by alternating chapter one then two, followed by three then four.  Past, Present, Past, Present - like that.  It has a much faster pace as a result and hopefully, the new balance will appeal to readers. I think it will; hope so.

This got me thinking along with the fact I began writing new scenes before recreating the lost ones from memory; got me thinking how most novels are written NOT in this manner. First you have the two storylines coinciding right alongside one another, and most importantly, I began writing scenes out of timeline as they do in shooting movies. I found this a challenge. I know I want that scene but have not written the previous one yet. Tricky and I know I will have to go back and read from the beginnnng up to this point to be sure I have not flubbed a lot of things that could be flubbed working out of chrnonological order. I hope my characters will all support me and be sports about how erratic the writiing is going so far, but I have every confidence in them. 

I am happy so far with the characterizations and the plot; I work hard to make plot and character involved with one another. Like most of my books before this, I am dhallenging myself to do somethiing fresh and new as I am not interested in doing the same book over and over, using same formula, even in series work. I want my characters to grow, change, react as well as act. I am so happy too to be working again with Inspedtor Alastair Ransom despite his fall from grace and using an AKA and hiding out from certain authorities.

A gtreat deal  more dialouge has been added, and pages are building, but there is a great deal more to go. Best get back at it. Any questions, suggestions, comments please add a suggestion on the title. To get ideas for the title think Titanic...doom and gloom, a plague aboard, karma,  Meanwhile, I will keep working on the worldview and mindset of each of the characters.

Thanks and happy writing - latest Kindle titles are Killer Instinct and Aftershock!

135 ebooks with my name on the covers have sold this month at the Kindle bookstore. If you are one who has purchased, please consider doing a review of the book on Amazon.com; you would have my undying gratification (for what that's worth!)