Things to do in bed

Okay, I get the whole e-book thing now. It's convenient. It's small and fairly lightweight. It fits easily and comfortably in the hand and there's no need to raise the arms to turn the pages, a button does all the work. It takes up about the same space as a paperback and the batteries last a good amount of time. But if I give up real books, the ones with covers and spines and pages, I won't have anything to sleep with. Maybe that's a good thing. Feng shui would have it that having a space on the bed where someone else would sleep is an invitation to someone in the universe willing to sleep on that side against the wall with me on the other side providing furnace heat. Other New Age best selling books say the same thing. So, that only leaves me who wants to sleep with books and magazines and catalogues.

Tim told me his doctor told him (don't you just love he said-she said stories?) that the only thing a person should do in bed is sleep. Tim has insomnia and only uses his bed for sleep. No wonder he has insomnia. I use books and magazines and other reading material like most people use Valium and sleeping pills. Reading lying down makes me sleeping, even with my 1150. Of course, with the 1150, I don't have to roll over and turn out the light; I can -- and do -- read in the dark. When I wake up in the middle of the night and have a little trouble falling back to sleep, I read. Books are necessary on the bed -- and on the floor next to the bed and on the nightstand and on the chest of drawers I pass when I come back from the bathroom on the way to the bed.

I also eat in bed on the weekends or when I'm under the weather. On the weekends, it's a luxury not to have to get up, make breakfast, get showered and dressed and work. I can lounge around all day in bed with pit stops and eat and sleep and read to my heart's content. I think weekends are made for relaxing and unwinding from the hectic weekday pace, and bed is the best place to do that. I drink in bed most nights. I drink fresh, hot cocoa or chamomile tea, and sometimes I have a half glass of wine with my book before turning out the light and going to sleep.

For the first year after I moved here I didn't eat anything in the bedroom and I only kept a glass of water by the bed to drink when I wake up in the middle of the night and I feel a bit parched from the furnace or the summer night's heat. I'd eat in the living room on the couch where there's a table (the coffee table, except I don't drink coffee) and read or watch a movie. The minute I got comfortable and stretched out to read, I fell asleep with the lights on and in an uncomfortable position that made my neck cramp for days. That's when I lifted the self-imposed ban on eating and drinking in the bedroom. I want to be comfortable when I read and to be comfortable I need to be in bed where if I fall asleep I'm not going to wake up with cramps and aches in places that usually don't cramp and ache, thank you very much.

And beds are for having sex, napping and having more sex. Of course, that might be a little difficult with the usually unoccupied side of the bed covered with books, magazines and catalogues, so maybe the e-book reader is a better idea for reading in bed . . . just in case. You just never know. After all, a hundred books in bed, not including catalogues and magazines, are a bit difficult to get off the bed in case of a sex attack, and getting to the sex would be quicker without all my usual companions.

Aw, hell, that's why couches, and floors and kitchen counters were invented -- to have sex when half the bed is covered in books.

I like my 1150 and it is convenient, but I'm not giving up the three dimensional, food-stained, smudged pages of paper and ink books. A girl's got to have something to cozy up to on a sleepless night.

Family fun and frolics

< br>The best way to start a morning is to laugh and I've been smiling and laughing all morning.

Carol, my sister who seldom emails or calls, emailed this morning. She's been reading Twilight. I warned her, but what do I know? Evidently I know quite a bit. Her email was short and to the point. "You're right. Bella is whiny and needy." Of course I'm right. I read the book. I saw the movie. Neither one had been doctored by someone with a talent for dialogue.

Maybe I should refer to Carol by a nickname, as I do with my other sister, Beanie. I could use Grandpa's nickname (Bessie the Bullfrog -- don't ask me why, he never explained) or Mom's nickname for her, Miss Priss, or I could use my nickname for her, Hoity-Toity. So as not to be too confusing I'll pick one and stick to it, probably my nickname. It's funnier, although Miss Priss does fit her as well.

Mom called last night, forcing me to get up from my cozy, comfortable pose on the couch watching "Space: Above and Beyond" and go to the back of the house where my office hides during off hours and get the phone. She wanted to thank me for "The Thorn Birds" DVD I sent her. While we talked, Mom got into a conversation with Carol that had nothing to do with me. Since I missed the call and had to call back, Hoity-Toity answered the phone and didn't know that Mom had called. They live in the same house, but Mom sees it as being split into "her house" and "Hoity-Toity's house", as evidenced by Mom telling me she was going to clean her house tomorrow. Anyway, between her conversation with Hoity-Toity and me, Mom finally broached the subject of my brother Jimmy. We'll call him Idiot, mostly because he is. Idiot has decided he wants to be married again, just not to his ex-wife Bobbie. (There is no good nickname for her that would be acceptable in polite conversation.) The problem is that he works two jobs and spends the rest of his time on the computer chatting up women in the Ukraine, Istanbul and other not American countries on Second Life instead of having a life of his own.

"You won't believe it. Idiot is letting his hair grow long."

"How long, Mom?"

"Past his collar."

"Like a mullet?"

"He always looked so good with his buzz cut and now..." Words failed Mom. "And he has a full beard." Just not for long.

"Has he decided to become a hermit?"

"He looks horrible, like a great big hairy bear." Maybe I should consider changing his nickname. "I wish you'd talk to him."

"Mom, he doesn't pay any attention to what I say. I've been urging him to get out of the house, but he says he doesn't have time. He has time if he'd get off the computer and stop fooling around with Second Life and get out and have an actual life."

"He does listen to you. He respects you."

"Can't tell it by me, but I'll try again. He could enroll in a college course for fun, a cooking class or go to a singles mixer at church. There are lots of options."

"Oh, that's a good idea."

"Which one?"

"All of them. I could get him to join Bruce's group." Bruce is my cousin Laura's second husband, Mom's brother's daughter. Confused yet?

"How many ounces is a pint?" Hoity-Toity got on the other phone. She was tired of listening in and not being part of the conversation.

"Sixteen."

"So what is 31 ounces?"

"One ounce shy of a quart."

"Then how many ounces in a gallon?

"Well, 64 ounces is a half gallon, so 128 ounces is a gallon."

"There's no way I can drink that much water."

"Well, actually you can, but just not all at once unless you want to vomit."

Then Mom started talking to "my baby", Cujo the pint-size chihuahua with the St. Bernard size attitude and the hydrophobic pit bull gleam in her eye, so I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom and said goodbye before Mom got into full Dink love.

That's my family. To them I'm Dr. Cornwell, the Encyclopedia Jackie and Jackie-of-all-Trades who counsels idiots and water drinkers everywhere.

I should mention that none of the above, with the exception of Hoity-Toity agreeing with me that Bella is whiny and needy, not to mention irritating and repetitive as well, had nothing to do with my smiles and laughter this morning. That came from other sources.

That is all. Disperse.

The gods are watching -- and meddling

Sometimes I get ahead of myself, double checking facts and data and still getting things wrong because I was in a rush or was distracted, as when mailing out packages. As I told one friend, I'm an idiot. Oh, well, admit the mistakes and move on. That's how I usually deal with things. It doesn't pay to keep hashing things over and over and beating myself to a pulp. I don't look good in bruises. Blue and Black are my colors, just not when there's skin involved.

It's one of those days when I'm running behind schedule and the harder I run to catch up the more behind I get. It's the usual follow-up to a really good day like yesterday. I don't need a slave standing behind me in the chariot holding a laurel wreath above my head reminding me I am just a human not a god. I've seen the job and I don't want it anyway. Being a god is boring, else why would the gods spend so much time taunting, teasing and otherwise messing up humans' lives? Only gods would grant someone the gift of prophecy and then turn around and curse the prophetess so that no one ever believes her. The gods must have been regular humans at some point who were more advanced and more intelligent than the rest of humanity and got so bored with being perfect and untouchable that immortality was a curse and a burden rather than an opportunity to continue evolving and shepherding humans to the next level. Let's face it, slapstick humor is funnier than intellectual humor because it resonates with the most basic instincts, someone else is getting reamed and, boy, it looks funny. In situations like that, it's best to point to your own folly before someone makes it a bigger deal than it is, hence my confession about mixing up addresses on packages and the contents of said packages. I prefer to think of it as a misfire in synaptic firing.

And then there are those that feel they were instrumental in another person's success. No one succeeds alone, although most of the time it seems like it. A lot of people, most of them unknowingly, helped me get where I am today. Every story and article I edited taught me what not to do and how to use my strengths to best advantage. All the articles, essays, stories and poems I looked at and decided whether or not to publish, all the writers I taught, every piece of advice (good and bad) I heard and chose to use or discard, every person who believed in me, every editor who took the time to offer help and school me, every person who read one of my stories and told someone else, and me, what was good and bad, and every single person who read my work helped me become a better writer. No one's input was without value, even when it wasn't right for me, and I owe every one of them my heartfelt thanks, and I do thank them.

Writers believe they write alone, but no one does anything alone, at least in the sense of being touched by others and touching others. Every moment, every experience, every thought, everything is part of the process and becomes part of the writer and the finished work. Whether or not the debts are acknowledged, they still remain.

Everything we do, see and are is due to the blending of internal and external forces, a symbiotic relationship that is as frustrating as dealing with the gods and just as rewarding. It's magic and it's worth it.

It only counts when spelled correctly

Off to a running start this morning after a night of almost good sleep. Now that's the way to start a day.

I received notice that one of my blog posts, Ride the Avalanche or be Buried was picked up and posted on twitter this morning. As flattered as I was, I did have to tell him he spelled my last name wrong. I don't understand how someone can read Cornwell and get Cromwell. Oh, well, at least they got the title and the link correct. That's something. I'm not irritated, but I am a little uncomfortable with having to thank the gentleman for commenting and cross-posting and then having to tell him he made a mistake, a rather big mistake. Oh, well, at least it was tweeted for a few minutes, if incorrectly.

For those of you turning in late, the post is about Jonathan Galassi's contention that William Styron's heirs do not have the right to sell digital rights to another publisher using the copyrighted manuscript published by Random House and created in concert with their editor and publishing staff. I also mentioned that the cost of e-books is far out of line and should be scaled back drastically, but you can read it for yourself, if you're interested.

I posted my review of Paris Under Water by Jeffrey H. Jackson on the 1910 flood and I must admit I was not looking forward to reading the book when I got it. I was, as is sometimes the case, surprised and pleased with the book. I've also marked it up and made notes in the margins, a sure sign that this book will impact future reading and may even end up in a blog post at some point. I enjoyed the way Jackson used contemporary sources and anecdotal material to make Paris under siege by the Seine come alive and how strategically placed photographs of the period were used to highlight and illustrate some of the more poignant and telling moments. The epilogue was quite revealing and, while I expected Jackson to go into environmental and blaming mode, he did not. Instead he put judgment aside and relied on facts and quotes from people on site at the time to point toward the future. I do wonder, however, if, like Cassandra of Troy, his prophecies will go unheeded and unremarked while the future unfolds as he sees it. Paris Under Water is definitely worth reading and re-reading.

I also booked my vacation next month and am looking eagerly forward to spending a sybaritic week (thank you, Mary Ann, for that image) reading, relaxing, toasting my toes in front of the fireplace and generally doing nothing remotely work related.

Right now, I'm off to shower, dress and get to work. It is another weekday after all.

That is all. Disperse.

Ride the avalanche or be buried

There's a quiet hush over the house. Work is finished for the day, although I'll be back at it soon. In the meantime, I'm going to take a shower, get dressed and run some errands. I need the exercise and there are things I need to do.

I've been enjoying the 1150 and finished Hogfather and began Dead Until Dark. was right about Terry Pratchett. The "punes" are funny and thoughtful and Pratchett's use of mythology and science in such close proximity is nothing short of genius. He definitely deserves to sell more than 30 million books. I'm glad some of his books are available as e-books, which brings me to an op-ed piece I read this morning.

Jonathan Galassi, president of of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, wrote about what a publisher puts into a book and used William Styron and his experience with Random House as an example. There is no doubt that Random House put their best editor and resources forward to make those of Styron's books they published best sellers. Random House marketed Styron's books, like Sophie's Choice, to film and other markets and eventually, after the hard cover versions had been out a while, printed a paperback version at a lower cover price. Galassi makes the case that Random House should also be able to set the price for digital versions and that Styron's heirs shouldn't be allowed to sell those rights to a digital publisher using the Random House created version. He does have a point; however, he didn't pay attention to what he wrote.

He said a paperback version costing less than the hard cover version was put out after a period of time. Some changes had to be made in fonts and formatting in order to create the paperback version and they made money. Styron's heirs shouldn't be allowed to use the Random House version to make the e-book, which says he doesn't know anything about digital publishing. A publisher doesn't take the hard cover or paperback version of a book and scan it to create an e-book, not if it's a good quality e-book and not just a scan for the Google book project. In that sense, the e-book is not the original version and thus does not belong to the publisher in any way, shape or form. Yes, a Random House editor helped make Styron's book better, as Styron stated many times, but the editor was paid, and not in royalties. He drew a salary and did a job for hire. His part was over and his input, although valuable, was part of the copyright Styron owned and his heirs now own. And that is the point. The author owns the copyright and it is up to the author who is allowed to publish his work.

Instead of whining about losing digital rights, the publishers should be learning to make and market digital copies of their books and market them in the same way they market paperback versions. Right now, the cost of e-books is far out of line with what the market will and can bear. There is no paper, no binding, no cover and no physical book and yet big publishers insist on pricing e-books at the cost of hard cover copies and far about paperback copies. Paperback books have a shelf life of 5-10 years, depending in how much they are handled and read. They are a product of planned obsolescence. In other words, they are not meant to last so there is a market for replacements. There is no need for a replacement with an e-book as long as there is power and memory and the software necessary to bring up the e-book again and again, and that is what publishers are so upset about. They cannot continue to drink from the same well with the same dipper over and over. The answer is publishing back lists and making e-books affordable and not gouging the consumer.

Authors take their back lists to other publishers when the original publisher fails to promote and market the work sufficiently so they can concentrate on other authors making more money. Billions of books end up in landfills and are pulped and turned into who knows what if they don't sell during the first few weeks. With digital publishing, there is no waste and an unlimited market for books -- if they are priced affordably. With the current technology, e-books can be made available internationally and sell far more than paperbacks or hard cover with a wider distribution. That's where profit can be made. It's time for the big publishers to take a look at their business model and either move with the times or be run over by the digital avalanche.

In the Middle Ages, books were produced by hand and available only to the rich and the clergy. The average person couldn't read and didn't have access to books unless they took religious orders. Gutenberg changed all that with movable type. More books available made it possible for the average person to get hold of books and to learn to read. And the world was changed. Books were still the province of the haves and the have-nots scrounged for what books they could until Benjamin Franklin created the lending library. More people had access to even more books. In the booming economy, more people had access to more books, books they owned and read over and over. That was when books were made to last. As the middle class began to make more disposable income, they bought more books and publishers created paperbacks out of materials that were guaranteed to disintegrate with time so that beloved books must be replaced even with careful use and care.

We have gone from a world where books were the sole possession of churches and the wealthy to a world where anyone can buy a book and publishers are determined to make as much money as they can from the hunger for words and stories and fantasies that can transport the reader to magical worlds and into the realm of possibility and knowledge. It's time to move with the times where publishers realize that selling a book for $1000 is not nearly as important as selling a thousand books for $1. The technology has removed the barrier of planned obsolescence and in its place is a world wide open and ready for more books to read and savor. The answer for publishers is to buy, edit, market and publish good books that may not be available in hard cover until readers clamor for a print copy.

Publishers, either move with the times or stand aside for people of vision who are ready and able to do so or you will end up being swept away by the avalanche.

Ride the avalanche or be buried

There's a quiet hush over the house. Work is finished for the day, although I'll be back at it soon. In the meantime, I'm going to take a shower, get dressed and run some errands. I need the exercise and there are things I need to do.

I've been enjoying the 1150 and finished Hogfather and began Dead Until Dark. was right about Terry Pratchett. The "punes" are funny and thoughtful and Pratchett's use of mythology and science in such close proximity is nothing short of genius. He definitely deserves to sell more than 30 million books. I'm glad some of his books are available as e-books, which brings me to an op-ed piece I read this morning.

Jonathan Galassi, president of of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, wrote about what a publisher puts into a book and used William Styron and his experience with Random House as an example. There is no doubt that Random House put their best editor and resources forward to make those of Styron's books they published best sellers. Random House marketed Styron's books, like Sophie's Choice, to film and other markets and eventually, after the hard cover versions had been out a while, printed a paperback version at a lower cover price. Galassi makes the case that Random House should also be able to set the price for digital versions and that Styron's heirs shouldn't be allowed to sell those rights to a digital publisher using the Random House created version. He does have a point; however, he didn't pay attention to what he wrote.

He said a paperback version costing less than the hard cover version was put out after a period of time. Some changes had to be made in fonts and formatting in order to create the paperback version and they made money. Styron's heirs shouldn't be allowed to use the Random House version to make the e-book, which says he doesn't know anything about digital publishing. A publisher doesn't take the hard cover or paperback version of a book and scan it to create an e-book, not if it's a good quality e-book and not just a scan for the Google book project. In that sense, the e-book is not the original version and thus does not belong to the publisher in any way, shape or form. Yes, a Random House editor helped make Styron's book better, as Styron stated many times, but the editor was paid, and not in royalties. He drew a salary and did a job for hire. His part was over and his input, although valuable, was part of the copyright Styron owned and his heirs now own. And that is the point. The author owns the copyright and it is up to the author who is allowed to publish his work.

Instead of whining about losing digital rights, the publishers should be learning to make and market digital copies of their books and market them in the same way they market paperback versions. Right now, the cost of e-books is far out of line with what the market will and can bear. There is no paper, no binding, no cover and no physical book and yet big publishers insist on pricing e-books at the cost of hard cover copies and far about paperback copies. Paperback books have a shelf life of 5-10 years, depending in how much they are handled and read. They are a product of planned obsolescence. In other words, they are not meant to last so there is a market for replacements. There is no need for a replacement with an e-book as long as there is power and memory and the software necessary to bring up the e-book again and again, and that is what publishers are so upset about. They cannot continue to drink from the same well with the same dipper over and over. The answer is publishing back lists and making e-books affordable and not gouging the consumer.

Authors take their back lists to other publishers when the original publisher fails to promote and market the work sufficiently so they can concentrate on other authors making more money. Billions of books end up in landfills and are pulped and turned into who knows what if they don't sell during the first few weeks. With digital publishing, there is no waste and an unlimited market for books -- if they are priced affordably. With the current technology, e-books can be made available internationally and sell far more than paperbacks or hard cover with a wider distribution. That's where profit can be made. It's time for the big publishers to take a look at their business model and either move with the times or be run over by the digital avalanche.

In the Middle Ages, books were produced by hand and available only to the rich and the clergy. The average person couldn't read and didn't have access to books unless they took religious orders. Gutenberg changed all that with movable type. More books available made it possible for the average person to get hold of books and to learn to read. And the world was changed. Books were still the province of the haves and the have-nots scrounged for what books they could until Benjamin Franklin created the lending library. More people had access to even more books. In the booming economy, more people had access to more books, books they owned and read over and over. That was when books were made to last. As the middle class began to make more disposable income, they bought more books and publishers created paperbacks out of materials that were guaranteed to disintegrate with time so that beloved books must be replaced even with careful use and care.

We have gone from a world where books were the sole possession of churches and the wealthy to a world where anyone can buy a book and publishers are determined to make as much money as they can from the hunger for words and stories and fantasies that can transport the reader to magical worlds and into the realm of possibility and knowledge. It's time to move with the times where publishers realize that selling a book for $1000 is not nearly as important as selling a thousand books for $1. The technology has removed the barrier of planned obsolescence and in its place is a world wide open and ready for more books to read and savor. The answer for publishers is to buy, edit, market and publish good books that may not be available in hard cover until readers clamor for a print copy.

Publishers, either move with the times or stand aside for people of vision who are ready and able to do so or you will end up being swept away by the avalanche.