Archive for category Day to day living

Closely Examine Writing for Examiner!

Feb 25

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, The business of writing | 9 Comments

Many times we writers try to think of ways to “monetize” our writing, and that’s reasonable.  ”The laborer is worthy of his hire,” as a sacred text says.  I don’t say I won’t write for free—I have done so, and in fact, nobody pays me to write my blog entries!

However, I heard about Examiner.com in 2008, and thought, “Hey, this would be cool!  I’d have this platform for readers, and that platform will be promoted, and not only that, they will pay me something for my readers.”  So, I signed up and was an Examiner for the Atlanta area.

The amount of money being paid was not much, but hey, it was something.  Every time an article of my own was read, they credited my account with a few cents.

But over time, my life got very busy and it got to the point where I just didn’t have the time to do it for the small amount of money that was being credited to me. So, in mid-August of 2009 I resigned as an Examiner and “cashed out.”  Rather, I should say that I TRIED to cash out.  Despite repeated communications back and forth between Examiner.com and myself, despite repeated assurances that I would be paid “soon,” I have yet to receive a dime.

My last email from Examiner.com was sent on February 16, after I wrote them on February 15.  They assured me that I would be paid on or about February 20, “with the rest of the Examiners.”  Well, folks, it is now February 25, and the payment from Examiner.com has yet to show up in my PayPal account.

They’re deadbeats.  They don’t pay.  They don’t care.  I’ve been communicating with them since August, and have been pushed aside, delayed, and lied to.  One email said, “I’ll get it taken care of. Once I deactivate your page you will be paid out in full on Oct. 20th. Let me know if you do not.”  I was not, and I let them know.  It did no good.

Folks, if you are considering writing for Examiner.com, I advise you to examine your considerations carefully.  I don’t mind sometimes writing for free, but I despise writing for someone who promises to pay and who reneges on payment.  It’s dishonest, it’s wrong, and it’s unprofessional.

It’s your choice, obviously, but I’d say it’s a bad idea to willingly work for someone who does not pay their workers as agreed.

Travelling Back In Time

Dec 15

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, Writing ideas from life | 1 Comment

Did you ever get the feeling that you somehow had stepped back in time, or maybe fallen into a time warp?  I got that feeling today.

As Buddy and I were out running errands for building our house (picking up pressure-treated 2×8 planks for garage door header beams), I also had to pull into WalMart to pick up a couple of items.  Buddy was eagerly awaiting me in the truck, but I had to slow down and finally stopped, uncertain of what I was seeing.

If you are as old as I am, you can remember back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, how the people usually called “hippies” had a predilection for tie-dyed clothing, a laid-back lifestyle, and Volkswagen microbuses.  (For you younger folks who don’t know about hippies, think organic alternative lifestyle combined with tree-hugging, rock music, a desire for peace across the whole world, and recreational drug use.  Got it?  Good.)

Well, right here at the edge of the Calhoun WalMart parking lot, was an old Volkswagen microbus with a peace sign hand-painted on the side.  It was like stepping back through that old television show The Time Tunnel.microbus-door

Sitting in the open side door was a dynamically-dressed Earth-motherly type with a profusion of dreadlocks, braiding colorful fiber (I can only suppose it to be hemp) into a rainbow of braided cord jewelry.  In a few moments I saw some movement inside the microbus, and a male figure with a beard came into view, a brightly tie-dyed kerchief covering his own dreadlocks.

I didn’t want to be rude and stare, but I really wanted to know more about these two folks.  So, after arguing with myself and discussing it with Buddy in the comfort of my pickup truck, I decided to bite the proverbial bullet: I walked over and greeted the folks in the microbus.

Jay and Donna (Jay has the beard) live in Seattle for most of the year, but as the holidays are approaching, they are on their way to visit family and friends in Key West.  (They got their cell Jay-and-Donnaphone the last time they were in Key West, thus that’s why they have a south-Florida phone number instead of a Seattle number.)

I should say they “hope” to be with family in time for the Christmas holidays; failing that, by New Year’s Day.  Their 1970 Volkswagen microbus, named Janis after the famous singer whose image on a jacquard throw adorns the ceiling of their vehicle, is getting on in years and needs occasional work. In fact, Jay told me they had spent some time in Chattanooga because a large part of their transport’s electrical system had issues.  Several items had to be repaired: turn signals, tail lights, etc.  I asked them, as I saw the advertisement on the side of their vehicle, if that was what they do for a living.  “Yep, we do the tie-dye, custom patchwork, make jewelry, all that sort of thing,” Jay told me.

“Jay has some painting work lined up down in Key West,” Donna added, “and I’ll be selling my work at the Key West Craft Show.”  She gestured to an array of braided bracelets, anklets, etc., that she had hanging on large rings nearby.

While I was there, a car pulled up with customers for their wares. They were running short of cash, so they were in a very low-key manner raising money to pay for gas to continue their journey.  I admire that work ethic, although I did warn Jay and Donna that Calhoun is not a very artsy-fartsy sort of place, and that he might have better luck selling their stuff down in Little Five Points in Atlanta.  “Yeah, we’ve heard about Little Five Points,” Donna said. “We usually stay out of the big cities, though,” put in Jay.Jay, Donna, and Cheech

As I stood there chatting with the two of them, I saw more movement inside the vehicle and realized that they were not alone.  Their traveling companion was a small chubby chihuahua by the name of Cheech.  “He’s a rescue dog,” Donna told me. “When we got him his name was already Cheech, so we stuck with it.”

Jay grinned.  “People are always asking us, ‘Where’s Chong?’”

It’s a long drive from Seattle to Key West… about the farthest you can go across the Lower 48 of the USA without backtracking somewhere.  “We go down there every year to visit family,” Jay said.  “Usually at the holidays.”

Donna grinned. “We’re following the sun.  Getting away from all that rain in Seattle.” She looked up at the cloudy sky. “There was almost as much rain in Chattanooga as in Seattle, though.”

I had things I needed to do, so I asked if I could take a few photos and blog about them.  They very graciously acceded to my request, so here they are.  As I drove away, another car had pulled up and was purchasing some braided bracelets.  If you happen to be in Key West in January, go by and see them at the Key West Craft Show.  They make some great handmade cord jewelry.  And if you see Janis the microbus rolling down the highway anywhere between Key West and Seattle, honk your horn and wave at Cheech.  He’s the one without the dreads.

Copyright ⓒ2009   Tony Burton

The Aggravation of Extension-In-Lexis

Oct 6

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, Language, Writing well | 9 Comments

No, it’s not related to the heartbreak of psoriasis. But this condition, extension-in-lexis, can be just as irritating to many confirmed lovers of language. So many of us who work with words want our tools to be well-defined and clear in meaning, but that is not the way it is to be.

Extension-in-lexis is defined as an: “Increase of the range of meanings of a given word, often through increase of figurative use.” And it happens all the time. For example, how many of us use the word blizzard to mean a snowstorm? The truth is, blizzard originally meant violent blows, a volley of words, or even a rifle shot… not a snowstorm. But on March 14, 1870, it was used in a newspaper to denote a violent snowstorm, and since that time constant usage in that context has reversed the preferred meanings. We talk about snow blizzards and assume that people know what we mean, but if we are referring to a boxing match where an person showers his opponent with violent blows, we may say “a blizzard of punches” as though to clarify this usage. Of course, the reality is that this was one of its original definitions.

Many words have their meaning changed over time, and as with blizzard, we modern writers may not even realize that we are contributing to the changing of language. Recently there was some discussion on a list I frequent, about the usage of the word tarmac. One staunch protector of original usage stated, and factually, that actual tarmac, or tar-macadam, is no longer used for runways because modern aircraft weigh too much for tarmac to support them. But because of constant historical usage, the meaning of tarmac has been extended to cover any sort of paving material used to construct runways and their associated taxiways, parking areas, and aircraft handling areas.

My own personally-aggravating word is decimate. Part of the word is “deci,” meaning one-tenth, and originally decimate was a way for the ancient Romans to achieve discipline. If a legion was being fractious and uncooperative, the leader of that legion might walk along the line of the formation and select every tenth legionnaire to be put to death–a strong deterrent to bad discipline. It was also used sometimes in controlling rebellious towns, by putting to death one tenth of the populace, or burning one tenth of the homes, and this meaning persisted into the 16th Century. Now, solemn-faced announcers proclaim that a town was decimated by an earthquake, when they really mean it was destroyed or devastated.

The word silly in the Middle Ages actually meant happy or blessed. Over time, it came to mean innocent or harmless… then to mean weak… and now denotes foolish or weak-minded. (Of course, the opposite side of this coin is the word nice, which in the 13th Century meant foolish or stupid, and now has a much more pleasant definition, though rather soft-edged and vague.)

Of course, it’s not just ancient times that created extensions-in-lexis. How about the word boot? Sure, it’s footwear, but as often as not nowadays we use it to talk about starting a computer, or restarting (rebooting.) And whence came that meaning? It came from bootstrapping older computers, which in turn came from the expression “to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps” or to get oneself started without assistance.

There are also words derived from real words by seemingly logical extension, but which have no root in reality. The word uncouth in Old English originally meant unknown or strange, but over the centuries came to mean not just unknown, but unknown to be used by polite society; in a word, impolite or rude. So, we now have people who say, “He has no couth.” But there never was a word couth that meant anything in the original language, Old English. It’s a new coinage, really.

I suppose what I’m getting to is this: language is a mutable and constantly changing thing, and extension-in-lexis is only one small part of how it grows and develops over time. No matter how much the anal-retentive among us might like to keep a corral around the language, strictly defining how words are used, it can’t be done. Language is a maverick thing, and very much alive, and will not be caged.

Copyright ©2009 Tony Burton

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Print-on-demand or offset: which is better?

Aug 22

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, Publishing | 4 Comments

There has been a lot of discussion on an online list I frequent, about the relative value of using POD (print-on-demand) to produce books as opposed to using offset printing.  Some have commented that there is a difference in quality, that the books are more expensive and therefore less competitive, that booksellers don’t want to carry POD books, and so forth.

The questions of whether POD is an “acceptable” method of printing, whether or not it makes books overpriced, whether or not booksellers will carry POD, are going to have different answers depending on who you ask and what method THEY prefer.  However…

1.  I challenge any average everyday consumer to pick out the POD books from a stack of mixed POD and offset-printed books. The process has improved tremendously, and unless you are going to pull a Sherlock Holmes with magnifying glass, I doubt you will see any differences at all. Certainly there are variations in quality between printers, but that occurs in both POD and offset printing. I’ve had offset books that fell apart after less than a year, and I have POD books that I have had for years with no signs of excessive wear and tear.  And it’s not like only small, “fly by night” operations use POD technology to produce books.  Simon and Schuster, Harcourt, Zondervan, and many university presses use POD because it makes more sense for many titles.

2. We can’t argue with the fact that, on a per-book basis, POD printing is more expensive than offset printing—IF all you consider is the cost of printing. However, as both business persons and citizens of the Earth, we have to step back and look at things from a broader perspective. Yes, it costs me less PER BOOK to print 5,000 copies of a book. But when I do that, (1) I have to pay for climate-controlled storage and fulfillment, (2) I have to ship those 5,000 books by some method, to that storage facility, and (3) I have to come up with a lump sum of money to print all 5,000 books at once. What if they don’t sell well, or hardly sell at all? It can happen.  (4) Of course, if I keep all these books past the time to file my taxes, then I have to inventory them and count them as an asset, which makes me liable for more taxes!  (5) Then I have continuing storage charges on books that are not making any money for me, or I end up selling them at a big loss to some dealer of remainders, at pennies on the dollar. Personally, I believe that for new and mid-list authors, the risk of printing several thousand books is usually higher than I want to bear.

As a responsible citizen of the Earth, I look at the ecological cost as well:

  • Hundreds of dead trees, whether we want to admit it or not.
  • Petroleum-based inks in most cases.
  • The petroleum to ship the pallets of books to their storage place.
  • The extra electricity used to keep those books in a climate-controlled environment.

If I’m going to create a carbon footprint, I’d like to do it in small, manageable increments rather than risk all that money, paper, manufacturing electricity, storage electricity, etc., in one fell swoop. I’ve been to a few of the remainders book shows, and it’s a frightening thing.  There are hundreds of thousands of titles—literally tons of books—some by famous authors, being sold for nearly nothing, and sometimes only to be sent to Japan or other countries, to be recycled to make toilet paper. Every author and publisher should spend a day at one of these shows to see how many books never sell, or having been shipped to a bookseller, get returned and sold for a pittance. It is an eye-opener to the realities of the economics of printing and publishing.

3.  I’m not a bookstore owner, but we cannot control what booksellers will or will not carry. I’ve had Barnes & Noble to shelve some of our POD books, returnable or not. I’ve also seen books shelved in stores and then get returned months later–even books printed by offset presses. It is very often a crap shoot as to what ends up on the bookstore shelves, what sells, and what gets returned and what doesn’t.

Certainly there are situations where offset printing is better or even necessary, and that’s fine. But the insistence upon using offset printing methods simply because they may be initially cheaper is just as arrogant and irresponsible as using lots of oil because “we have plenty of it” or shooting buffalo by the thousands because “there are millions of them.”  We have reached a point where as authors, publishers, and even as booksellers, we have to balance the profit against the impact on the environment as well as against the impact on our bank accounts. It’s altogether too easy to say, “Oh, let someone else worry about all that. I have to thrive.” Is your conscience that thick-skinned?

As someone once said, “If not you, who? If not now, when?”

Copyright ©2009  Tony Burton

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Plants, Drugs, and Death

Jul 29

Posted by Tony Burton in Day to day living, Writing ideas from life | 2 Comments

It’s time for a little bit o’ botany, and if you are a writer (especially of mysteries) you’ll probably find this interesting.

Once I wrote a story where the antagonist was done to death by being poisoned by tomato leaves.  (Yes, the antagonist–the “bad guy.”  Trust me, he deserved it.)  I had a couple of people who commented to me that they didn’t realize and/or didn’t believe that tomato leaves were poisonous.  Indeed they are, and therein lies the beginnings of a short lesson in botanical pharmaceuticals.

The tomato plant, if you didn’t know this, is related to the potato.  Same family, Solanacaea.  In this little family, you will find not only tomatoes and potatoes (anyone here remember a vice-president who couldn’t spell?) but also tobacco, deadly nightshade, eggplant, and petunia.  Some of these plants have parts that are definitely poisonous, others have parts which, when ingested, can cause various psychotropic effects.  Atropine and scopolamine are two of the medicinal drugs derived from some of these plants.

Those of you who have indulged in tobacco use can testify to it’s addictive qualities, and the fact that, when ingested either as a product of burning or by chewing, produces a calming effect on the nerves and a reduction of appetite.

OK, where are you going with this, Tony??

I’m getting there, I promise.  Another member of that same family, not mentioned above, is jimson weed, both in it’s wild-growing form and the larger, more showy cultivated plant. Datura (another name for jimson weed) is a  source of some medicinal compounds and (according to research) the most widely-used hallucinogenic and medicinal plant in the world.  The cultivated version can be beautiful, with its large, pale flowers that resemble rolled-up silk handkerchiefs when closed and look like huge floral trumpets when open.  However, its beauty belies its danger.  Children have been poisoned by the nectar of the flower, and adults have been poisoned by trying to use its seeds or other parts for a recreational high.  Cattle have been poisoned and killed by eating the wild-growing variety in pastures, although they will usually only eat it when nothing else is available.

This past week, I drove our little electric-powered utility vehicle down the road to the park near where we live.  (It’s a small, county-maintained dead-end road that passes through our property and

Wild datura, or jimson weed

Wild datura, or jimson weed

that of others via an easement, so not much is said about such things as non-road-approved vehicles.)  There had been a visit to Salacoa Creek Park by fire and rescue and I was curious!

The excitement was small and temporary–some person had gotten too much sun and had passed out beside the concession stand.  As I was about to leave, I noticed something disturbing.  Flourishing in the flower bed beside the concession stand but away from where people spent their money for popsicles, hotdogs and soda pop, was a healthy and vibrant datura plant, with flowers six or so inches in diameter when open.  I harvested one of the immature seed pods to verify that it was indeed a datura, and I was correct.

If this were growing in a person’s garden with no children around, I wouldn’t worry about it.  It’s their business.  But here, small children run around the plant all the time.  The showy flowers cry out to be picked, although the spiny seed pods are off-putting.  EVERY part of the plant is poisonous.  So, in the real world here, I’m hoping that they will remove this dangerous plant now that it has been reported.

In the world of crime fiction, do you think that you could use some member of the Solanacaea family for some nefarious purpose?  (By the way, if you have seen the first Harry Potter movie, you may remember the three child wizards being caught in a plant called Devil’s Snare.  Devil’s Snare is another name for jimson weed.)  I’d much rather hear of it being used for fictional poisonings than for any real-world deaths.

Copyright ©2009  Tony Burton

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