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Dialogue with my muse |
| I have been carrying on a dialogue for almost a year. During this time we have discussed the progress of my writing, editing, and publishing efforts. Join in to listen to our conversation about my daily writing life and add your comments if you think of anything Calliope and I miss. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. What's afoot this morning? JOE: I was just thinking over my weekend. CALLIOPE: Were you satisfied with it? JOE: I enjoyed all the socializing and even got a little work done. CALLIOPE: Such as? JOE: Distributing my book announcement to my readers, thinking about my next book and planning my publicity. CALLIOPE: Tell me more ab out the publicity. JOE: I will notify all my contacts on various sites, do some videos for Youtube and ask for an announcement in the local paper. CALLIOPE: What focus do you plan to take with the newspaper? JOE: Distributing my book for free, it's format as a dialog which is unique as far as I know and what goes into being a writer. CALLIOPE: Sounds like a good start. Do you ever pay for advertising? JOE: I haven't yet and don't think that is a very efficient or productive approach at least for me considering the cost. CALLIOPE: So you plan to rely more on word of mouth. JOE: I do. At least for the time being. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| Saturday, August 29, 2009 Conversations with Calliope- Book Release JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. What's new? JOE: Our book is ready. Here is the release information: Just Released Conversations with Calliope: A Year With My Muse Joseph G. Langen Have you ever wondered about the day to day life of a writer? Is it fun, exciting, frustrating? If you are a writer, have you thought about how other writers’ lives compared with yours. Follow a year in a writer’s life through frequent conversations with his muse about writing, marketing, publicity, inspirations and distractions. This book is available free of charge. Read a selection at http://www.slidingotter.com/conversations.html. Ten Reasons to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse 1.Find out where writers get their ideas. 2.Hear what a writer does all day. 3.Listen to what writers say about being a writer. 4.I want my muse to be more helpful. 5.See how to get unstuck when you write. 6.Learn how to talk with a muse. 7.Explore what else writers need to know besides how to write. 8.Discover what keeps a writer going page after page. 9.Determine who supports a writer’s efforts. 10.Unearth the sources of writers’ inspiration. Ten Reasons Not to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse 1.Who needs a muse? Writing is the writer’s responsibility. 2.I don’t care how things get written. I just want to enjoy what I read. 3.I can write a book if I want to. Maybe some day I will. I’ll do it my way. 4.There’s nothing magic about writing. It’s just hard work. 5.I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write anything good. 6.Writing’s old fashioned. Everybody watches TV these days. 7.I don’t have time to read, much less write. 8.Most writers are just crusty alcoholics. 9.Writers are like teachers. They can do anything useful so they just talk about it. 10.If it's free it can't be worth anything. Order a free PDF copy of Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse by Joseph G. Langen from Sliding Otter Publications at http://www.slidingotter.com/order_page.html. JOE: Happy reading. Talk with you on Monday. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Did you finish your column? JOE: I did and found it went smoothly. Thanks for listening yesterday. CALLIOPE: Now what? JOE: I worked on distribution of our e-book yesterday. CALLIOPE: How's it coming? JOE: It's little hard to say. I checked with one person who was able to download it successfully but another could not access it and got a message that it didn't exist. CALLIOPE: Strange. JOE: I thought so too. I am able to access it easily in Firefox and Internet Explorer but then I'm not distributing it to myself. CALLIOPE: What do you plan to do? JOE: I will ask a few more people to download it and see what their experience is. CALLIOPE: What do you think the problem might be? JOE: It could be that his browser does not allow download of PDF files with passwords. But that's just a guess. I will try sending him the file by email. CALLIOPE: Another mystery. JOE: What would life be without them. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How's you column coming? JOE: Interesting you should ask. CALLIOPE: Well? JOE: You hit it on the head yesterday. My topic of addressing health and the environment exceeded the constraints of 500 words. CALLIOPE: So now what? JOE: I will put off the topic until I figure out what to do with it. CALLIOPE: And in the mean time? JOE: I woke up very early this morning wondering why people read books at all. CALLIOPE: Any specifics? JOE: I recalled Francis Bacon's quote about some books to be tasted, some to be swallowed and a few chewed and digested. CALLIOPE: Do you plan to pursue that topic in this week's column? JOE: I do. CALLIOPE: Sounds interesting. JOE: I'd better get to work on it. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. What's up today? JOE: I'm taking a break from wrestling with technology. CALLIOPE: What brought that on? JOE: My commitment to writing a column and newsletter for the coming Saturday. CALLIOPE: Do you have a topic in mind? JOE: I do. CALLIOPE: And? JOE: I want to write about how our concern about finances and health intersect with the way we treat our earth. CALLIOPE: It sounds like a task for a lifetime rather than a column. JOE: I agree. Still I want to address it. The problem is how to say something meaningful in 500 words. CALLIOPE: Quite a challenge. How do you plan to approach it? JOE: That's what I have been pondering. Maybe I will present it as one of my life mysteries and just open up the topic. CALLIOPE: That would be a start. Nobody seems to be thinking much about these connections. JOE: I'll get my mental wheels turning and see what happens. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Realizing I spoke too soon about my mastery of technology. CALLIOPE: How so? JOE: I thought I had everything under control with my websites and emails. CALLIOPE: Not quite? JOE: No. A while ago when I reloaded my websites, my e-mail got put somewhere else so it would not disappear. Friday I tried to put it back where it belonged but it got blocked. CALLIOPE: So now what? JOE: I called this morning to straighten it out and think it will be okay, but possibly not until tomorrow morning. CALLIOPE: What are the implications for your e-book? JOE: I want to make sure everything is working correctly before I post the file on my website. CALLIOPE: Sounds like you're getting close. JOE: That's the way it sounds to me too. CALLIOPE: So now what? JOE: I have correspondence to catch up with and then back to work on Marital Property. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Making some progress. CALLIOPE: Tell me. JOE: I told you yesterday about my choice of how to distribute my book. CALLIOPE: You did. JOE: I got to work yesterday putting the technology in place. CALLIOPE: With what results? JOE: I needed another e-mail address to use to collect e-mail addresses from potential readers and distribute a password so they can download the book. CALLIOPE: How did that go? JOE: Making progress. I got one set up to handle an autoresponder. CALLIOPE: Tell me what that is. We didn't have them in our heyday on Mt. Olympus. JOE: I keep forgetting. An autoresponder is an automatic program built into an e-mail site which gathers and sends information automatically so I don't have to sit by the computer 24 hours a day waiting for people to write. CALLIOPE: Sounds useful. JOE: I think so. Next step is to build an easy to use order form for my website. A job for next week. Talk with you then. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Not bad. CALLIOPE: How's the e-book coming? JOE: It looks ready to go. CALLIOPE: What's the holdup? JOE: Distribution. Never having done this, I found more options than I expected. CALLIOPE: Such as? JOE: PDF, Zip file, exe, word document are some of the format choices. CALLIOPE: Have you decided among these? JOE: After considering the possibilities, I have settled on PDF. CALLIOPE: Okay. What about distribution channel? JOE: I originally thought of doing it by email. CALLIOPE: But? JOE: It is a slow and unwieldly process given the size of my e-book. CALLIOPE: So what are the alternatives? JOE: The one I chose is posting it on my website and making it accessible with a password so I can keep track of who downloads it. More tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Ready to share your ten reasons project?. JOE: Actually there are twenty. Ten for and ten against reading our book. CALLIOPE: Lets start with the pros. JOE: Okay, here goes: Ten Reasons to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse 1.Find out where writers get their ideas. 2.Hear what a writer does all day. 3.Listen to what writers say about being a writer. 4.How can a muse be more helpful? 5.See how to get unstuck when you write. 6.Learn how to talk with a muse. 7.Explore what else writers need to know besides how to write. 8.Discover what keeps a writer going page after page. 9.Determine who supports a writer’s efforts. 10.Unearth the sources of writers’ inspiration. CALLIOPE: Pretty good. How about the cons? JOE: Okay. Ten Reasons Not to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse 1.Who needs a muse? Writing is the writer’s responsibility. 2.I don’t care how things get written. I just want to enjoy what I read. 3.I can write a book if I want to. Maybe some day I will, but I’ll do it my way. 4.There’s nothing magic about writing. It’s just hard work. 5.I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write anything good. 6.Writing’s old fashioned. Everybody watches TV these days. 7.I don’t have time to read, much less write. 8.Most writers are just crusty alcoholics. 9.Writers are like teachers. They can't do anything useful so they just talk about it. 10.I’d never want someone to tell me what to write. CALLIOPE: Are you trying to talk people out of reading the book? JOE: No but I want to address possible reservations before readers think them up. CALLIOPE: Anything else? JOE: Yes. If people really believe the cons, I don't want them wasting their time reading our book. CALLIOPE: But? JOE: But maybe they will rethink their objections and have a look anyway. CALLIOPE: Good thought. Let's see what happens. JOE: Nothing to lose as far as I can see. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good afternoon Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good afternoon Joe. I thought you might have gotten lost in your work and forgotten about me. JOE: Never fear. We had early morning visitors who just left after lunch. So here I am. CALLIOPE: I see. How did your work turn out yesterday? JOE: I finished reviewing the draft and successfully converted it to a PDF. CALLIOPE: And then? JOE: I mailed it to my daughter for practice? CALLIOPE: How did that go? JOE: It arrived but so did seven copies. I'm not sure what to make of that but it took here a couple hours to receive the e-mails. CALLIOPE: Not good. JOE: I agree. It needs some investigation. CALLIOPE: Anything else afoot? JOE: I finished writing my seven reasons for and against reading our book. CALLIOPE: May I see them? JOE: They are just a draft. I hope to have them ready for you tomorrow. |
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