General tinkering and stuff

Of late I've been doing a lot more non-writing than writing, which while frustrating at times is sometimes necessary.

After a month of flash drive failures and feelings of general burnout I've managed to get writing again, but I've also found myself having to do a lot of non-writing writing-related stuff too.

One of the things I got done just today was to create a mailing list for new releases.  This is something for the casual fan who might not want to listen to me blathering on about how many words I've written this week or whatever, something I will put a link to in the back (or probably the front) of each of my ebooks so that people who like them can find out easily when I put out a new release.  The email box on the blog should be directly to the right of this paragraph, but in case it's gone walkabout the link is here

http://eepurl.com/qceDj

Click it, put in your name and email, and that's it.  Just to clarify, I will be using this only to send out a notification of a new release, nothing more.  The absolute maximum number of emails you'll get per month is one, because I'm running out of short stories to publish and there's only so fast I can write.

While there is another email subscription box further down that one is for this blog, but I have no clue how many people have signed up for it (or any way to find out) so I'm thinking to can it altogether.  It's in the consideration phase...

Something good that happened this week is my short story, Fallen from the Train, which was my first published story on Smashwords, has been price-matched to free by Amazon.  The whole point of putting my short stories on Amazon in the first place was to advertise my novels, and I'm hoping that this way it'll get lots of downloads and people who like it will want to buy Tube Riders, which is connected to the story.

 

Free now forever - click pic to download

I had to hassle the hell out of Amazon to get them to do it, sending in about 20 or so notifications of a lower price, but now I know they'll do it I'm going to start shifting my short stories out of Select and onto Smashwords.  It's easier to have them free all the time rather than go about the hassle of putting them on promo and all the messing about that comes with it.  Plus, if it's free all the time there's no need to worry about getting your downloads in a certain period of time.  It's easier all round, and since I've probably made $30 total across 13 short stories since January I have more to gain than to lose.

As part of the process, Smashwords requires higher res covers to make a book eligible for its premium catalogue (going to Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc) so the shorts getting moved across will be getting an upgrade.  First to get the treatment is The Cold Pools.  While I quite liked the old cover, I liked this one more -

I got the high res pic of pond5.com and added the text using Picasa Creative Kit.  The font is a wonderful one called "Steak".  Yeah, I know it has "cold" in the title but the story is set in a world ravaged by global warming so the deep red is kind of appropriate.  While I have a couple of awesome people who design my novel/novella covers for me I tend to go it alone with my shorts just to save a buck.  They can be a bit ragged but I think this one is great.  In an ideal world I would like to get them all professionally done but I don't have the money for it at the moment.  One day.

The Cold Pools is now on Smashwords and available for free download (click the pic), and once it's up on the premium catalogue I'll be going gung ho to get it price-matched.  I think this one would do well as it already has six reviews on Amazon (four 5s and two 4s) so will get a lot of notice.  I didn't put any sample chapters in this one but I think if people like it they'll check out my other stuff.

And the final thing I've been up to is trying to get the paperback for Man Who Built the World ready.  I have a wonderful cover courtesy of Su Halfwerk just waiting to go but after several weeks of wrestling with the formatting I've finally had to send it for external assistance.  I thought I had all the issues resolved, but checking the PDF tonight I see there are still one or two problems, namely some of the pages are shorter than others.  Very strange.  I've already put the poor formatter through hell so I hate to keep hassling her.  I really want it out by Christmas though.

So, with Christmas coming up, I'm closing in on a year of self-publishing.  I'll of course be doing a first year summary in January when the anniversary comes up but just to let anyone who thinks self-publishing is easy know, it really isn't.  I've broken my back on it this year, but while I've made almost no money I've made a lot of wonderful friends and learned more than I could possibly have imagined.  I always knew I could write and that hasn't changed, but there's so much more involved.  I don't like to think of the hours I've spent on things that many people might view as meaningless, or all the nights I've stayed in to write when I've wanted to go out drinking with the boys.

The first year is always supposed to be the hardest.  I really hope so.  But anyway, it's late, and so I'll leave you with a picture of what I really want to be doing right now...

 

 Miffy knows where it's at.

CW

4th Dec 2012

Karuizawa to Yokokawa old train line

As part of an attempt to research for Part 2 of Tube Riders (tentatively titled Tube Riders : Exile) and also to add a little more later detail to Part 1, I took myself off down to Karuizawa on the edge of Nagano Prefecture last weekend to check out the old train line from Karuizawa over the border into Gunma via the Usui Pass.

Until 1997, it was possible to get from Nagano to Tokyo via the Shinano railway, the old trundler which I can imagine took about a year, judging by the fact it takes 1 1/2 hours just to get to Karuizawa. However, since the Shinkansen line was put in around the time of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, a section of the old line was discontinued, meaning its Shink, walk, or give up.  On looking at it, that there is only 11km of the several hundred km missing, it does appear to be a blatant attempt to push business towards the Shinkansen.

The old line roughly follows the old Nakasendo, or post road, that wound its way up through the mountains.  It was very steep, therefore utilizing an old rack and pinion method to get over the Usui Pass.  There are also a lot of tunnels, as well as the pretty famous Megane Bashi, or "Glasses Bridge", the tallest arch bridge in Japan.

I rented a grandma bike (Mama-chari) without any gears for 200 yen.  I had no idea there would be a 10km uphill mountain pass to climb on the way back.

7.4km more to Glasses Bridge.  It was all downhill.

The old station at the start of the trail.  This is about halfway between Karuizawa and Yokokawa.  I had wanted to walk the whole route but it had disappeared, so this was the official starting point.

A little shrine at the entrance.

The first of about ten tunnels, all of them heading downhill.  Walking through the dark got tiring pretty quickly.

Inside one of the longest tunnels at 544m.  Note the little "air holes" on the left side.  I was planning to jump out of one in the event of an earthquake!

Megane Bridge from below.  It was actually far less impressive than I had expected.

As usual with any photogenic spot in Japan, there was an abundance of old people in attendance.

The view from the train line of Usui Lake.  While the walk was far less interesting than I had expected, there was some great scenery on offer.

Another view of the lake.

The onsen a couple of miles short of Yokokawa, where I gave up walking downhill, had a bath and got accosted into eating a pretty dire buffet lunch with two jovial old men called Toshiaki and Ken.  One of them ate like seven plates of food, at least double my effort.  I couldn't believe it.  He took bloody ages about it, too.

A view of some of the Gunma hills from the onsen.

The bridge on the other side on the way back.

Back at the dirty old station.

Against the far wall of the empty car park you might be able to see my bike.  I was pleased to find it was still there, although we had 10km of uphill to go yet.

Curve 88 from the bottom.  I started cycling at curve 84, but I wasn't about to go back down and take a photo of it.

An hour of uphill and 100 curves later, I reached the top of the pass.

The entrance to Karuizawa.  I was close to death at this point, and four days later my thighs are still burning.

Hell for all men everywhere - Karuizawa outlet village.

I guess while it was an interesting trip, I would probably drive next time, as I missed out on going to Yokokawa railway park basically because it was another four miles downhill and I was already exhausted.  I had gone to Karuizawa by train to keep in with the theme, but the railway line proved to be far less interesting than I had hoped.  There was no track left, and probably 50% of the time I was inside a tunnel.  Also, no English explanations didn't help.  Still, there were some nice views.

CW

21 Sept 2012

Hanami in Nagano

Well, it's that time of year in my part of Japan where the cherry blossoms are out and everyone is all excited about "hana-mi", literally "flower-viewing".  While the only Sunday I had free for a hanami party was pouring with rain, I still took lots of nice pictures of the area around where I live of the trees in "manten" (full bloom).

The most popular type of tree is the "sakura", or "cherry" tree, which is a light pink colour.  You can't actually eat the cherries that grow on the trees after the flowers have gone, although they are used as ingredients in lots of stuff, such as Japanese sweets.

These sakura trees are near my house (although that's my neighbour's house in the picture).  The area is moderately well known, and has lanterns hung from the trees during April so there is a pretty light-up effect during the evenings.

"Sakura" is actually a popular girl's name in Japan.  I have a goddaughter called Sakura, and come across the name fairly often when I'm teaching at high school.

This is a river near my house with a line of sakura trees in bloom alongside my high school's baseball field, with a road bridge in the background.

More trees near my house.

There are two other types of tree that look awesome when they flower at this time of year, "ume" (plum) and "anzu" (apricot).  This is my ume tree (the string is to straighten it as it was growing a little wonky), and it flowers a deep purple.  It's only about four years old and this was the first year that it looked really full of flower.  Unfortunately there is no angle from which to take a picture without there being something unsightly in the background.  Like the sakura cherries, you can't eat the plums that form directly, although they're used for a variety of different foods, as well as being pickled to make the wonderfully sour "umeboshi", which I love, and which are apparently very good after exercise.  Ume can also be used to make "ume-shu" (plum liquor).  It takes about a year for the plum taste to fully infuse into the liquor - last year's 8 litre batch should be ready by July ...

Nagano Marathon 2012

Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon has been held every year since 1999, to remember the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998.  This year was the fourteenth and rather a special one because the event was cancelled last year in the wake of the Tohoku earthquake.

Nagano Olympic Stadium

Two years ago I dragged myself around the very flat and pleasant course in a backbreaking 4 hours and 57 minutes, but this year was I doing a volunteer activity organized by the Japan branch of the Junior Chamber International, an organisation which promotes humanitarian activities.  My wife’s brother is the chairman.

The JCI assembled a group of foreigners, made up of teachers like myself and university students, to help little children make cheering implements (tambourines, maracas, etc) out of recycled items such as plastic bottles and old milk cartons.

In total 23 foreigners participated, and a good day was had by all.  Here are some photos of the event.

Our volunteer area.

The eventual men's winner, Francis Kibiwott, with Mt Iizuna (1917m)

in the background.

The crowds lining the final approach to the Olympic Stadium.

Me with "Nano-chan", the Marathon's mascot.  Japan loves "cutesy" things.

Must have been really hot in that suit.

The men's race was won by Kenyan Francis Kibiwott in a new course record of 2:09:05, while another Kenyan, Pauline Wangui won the women's race in 2:34:22.  The Wheelchair Marathon (21km) was won by Masayuki Higuchi in 44:37.

Feeling inspired, I might enter again next year ...