+5 vs Scammers

I thought something smelled funny, but I kept it around anyway. Today I looked it up because it was really starting to stink, and I found this:

http://saltydroid.info/

How did I not know about Salty Droid before? This is awesome.

I love a lot of things about the internet. Probably my favorite thing (besides cute overload and instant communication with family and friends) (and art stuff) is how it can be such a great tool for education. I've been educating myself via the web for a while now, and I'm learning to get better at it.

Sadly, the internet is also a great place to get scammed and misinformed. Well-meaning friends (myself included) unknowingly spread stuff that isn't true or even actively harmful. This is why we need resources like Salty Droid, which outs scammers, and Snopes. What? You haven't heard of Snopes? Please. Please please please become acquainted with Snopes, an urban legend website. It's not perfect. No site is. But when you get one of those forwards from someone about the dangers of eating pop rocks and drinking cola at the same time, before you send it to everyone on your email list, first, go to Snopes and check out if it's true or false. There have been false positives and false negatives, of course, but they do have a mechanism for correcting those. At the very least, it's a great place to start.

Whatever you do, though, don't start reading around Snopes or Salty Dog because you'll get sucked in and before you know it, three days will have passed and you'll have no clean dishes or laundry. (But at least you'll be better informed!)

Often, the easiest way to keep your identity and your money safe on the internet is to simply use the internet itself against internet scammers. Salty Droid, just like Snopes, is one resource out of many and may not be perfect. For one thing, you have to be able to read nerdish, which can be byzantine in construction and unclear as far as what is meant as sarcasm and what's meant as an actual statement. Anyway, Salty Droid and many others out there exist purely to help you make certain that money or time (and let's face it, the time is usually more important than the money) isn't wasted on someone or something awful or potentially damaging to you. A few minutes of searching is time well-spent to defend yourself against bad things.

Of course, no Kami blog entry on scams and lies would be complete without a (re)mention of Writer Beware!®:The Blog and the Absolute Write Water Cooler. All you writers out there, if you get the least bit of opportunity, be sure to spread the word about this invaluable resource. There are still plenty of newbie (and some experienced) writers out there unaware of the horrid that is bad publisher and agent behavior, not to mention the many other pitfalls of writing.

Sometimes it feels like there are more pits than road.

The more mention there is on the internet of these kinds of resources, the harder time bad people will have stealing, and the better educated we all will be as lies and misinformation are snuffed out. Or revealed for what they are, which are stinky piles of stink. Or perhaps just laughed at. Maybe turned into silly videos we can all enjoy on YouTube. With cute kitties illustrating the main points.

Thusly armed, you can enjoy the wealth of educational materials (for free!), business opportunities (real ones with real value provided!), and of course, the ability to quickly communicate with family and friends on a scale unfathomable just twenty years ago (and look at cute animal pics and videos) and have a far smaller chance of getting ripped off or victimized by people abusing the awesome that is the internet for selfish gain w/o actually generating any value for the people they're hustling to.

It's like using the internet against the internet to better enjoy the internet. Somehow, it works.

'Cause I'm a copycat!

A dear friend of mine is recording her library at Library Thing, so naturally I have to too.  I've got all of 21 books entered, not much, but a start and they're the majority of my use-all-the-time how-to writing books.  I'm enjoying rediscovering my book collection (and realizing how big it is) and I'm also feeling a little more secure.  Should the unthinkable happen and our house burns down, assuming we make it out we'll have a head start on replacing some of our things.  

Some of the books, though, will be irreplaceable.  I'm pretty sure there are very, very few people who own The Rules:  A Short Course in The Basics by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  Forget about finding it for sale anywhere.  No ISBN, printed by the now long gone (unfortunately) Pulphouse Publishing, Writer's Notebook Press.  My copy has seen much use and abuse.  On the inside, in pencil, is written $3 new.  That was 18 years ago.  I've outgrown most of the advice but it's still absolutely valid.  I just have it memorized and have no good excuses to not do exactly what's outlined in the chapbook.  For example:  

Rule #1:  You Must Write

Rule #2:  Finish What You Write

Rule #3:  Mail Your Manuscripts

Rule#4:  Keep your manuscripts in the mail

Rule #5:  Repeat rules 1 through 4 at least once a week

This is far from all that's in the book.  There's lots of craft and insight in there crammed into twenty six pages of hard-won experience.

When you're starting out, Kristine Kathryn Rusch's advice is priceless.  I had no idea about this sort of stuff.  It was easily the best $3 I'd ever spent on a writing book.  For the experienced writer, there's a lot of reminders that make you go mmm hmm, uh huh, yeah, I should be doing that right now but the dog ate my homework.  What could I do if I lose it?  I guess I'll have to see if she or her husband have any copies still around, or if it's been folded into a larger work.  Other than that, unless someone bought it, put it away and then aha! found it and decided they didn't love it anymore and put it on ebay, I think I'd be out of luck. 

But then, if there's a disaster, there's inevitably going to be irreplaceable things lost.  I think without Library Thing, I would lose things I didn't realize I had until I started missing them and trying to remember exactly which writing books I had, and why, and how I felt about them.  And art books, and fiction written by my friends and books on science and the classics and all that good stuff.  Besides, it'll be fun to look through my library electronically.  In fact, the next time I'm looking for a book I'm sure we have somewhere, I can just do a search for it, and there it'll be, or not, with the exact color of the cover and maybe even a private note about where I keep it in the house.  Pretty nifty.  So, have a looksy, and if you like it, I won't tell anyone you're just being a copycat.

Before you download

I found a resource online that everyone else has probably known about for years, but oh well.  McAfee Site Advisor lets you plug in a website and lets you know if that site has an iffy record, if it connects to sites with lots of spyware, which websites it connects to, and so on.  I will never shop without it again, and as for downloads?  Oh yeah, no software will pass these virtual lips until my poison tester checks it out for me.

Great News

I got a real booster of an email this morning:

Sorry for the impersonal email, but it's much quicker to bcc everyone than to send a bunch of individual emails.

I just wanted you to know that your story is still under serious consideration for an upcoming issue of Flash Fiction Online. I don't want to make anyone too optimistic -- we'll only be able to accept about 25% of the people who are receiving this email -- but I wanted to make sure you knew that we hadn't forgotten about you or lost your story in the mail.

Regards,
Jake Freivald
Editor
Flash Fiction Online

I know I don't have a one in four chance of getting published.  This isn't gambling, after all.  It'll measure up to the other stories, or it won't.  

There's an additional artistic factor.  Many editors end up with conscious or unconscious themes to the stories they choose for a particular issue, even if it's 'I want all these stories to be completely different from each other.'  Every year that I coordinated the writer's workshop for OryCon, I had only one year where I had trouble grouping a story with another (I put the writers into pairs.)  For whatever reason I had one Mech Warrior story and no other robot story or military SF or franchise story, but I did have a pro author with experience in writing for Mech Warrior (what are the odds? heh) and so I made a quirky group with that pro and another pro that had deep experience in short stories.  The other submitting author had a short fantasy that was about the same writing level as the other submitting author in the group.    

The point is that fiction writers and their stories tend to come together in a serendipitous fashion, and serendipity may not be on my side this time.  Still, I'm happy and honored to have made it this far.  Publication with Flash Fiction Online would be a real feather in my cap.  By the way, if you don't read them, do.  I never have enough time to read, which makes Flash Fiction Online particularly wonderful.  

Mr. Freivald didn't have to send out the update, and I hope he didn't get a bunch of emails back (except quick thank yous, although even those might be considered clutter) pestering or abusing him.  You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't, at what people send to editors given the slightest excuse, which they take as some form of provocation.   Anyway, it was very nice of him to take the time.  The email certainly made my day.  Now, on to writing, and tiling, and cleaning, and all that.  I'm sure my work will be particularly flashy today.  

Let's Talk About People

If you haven't been over to Steve Barnes' blog lately you might take a peek, especially if you study human behavior, politics, or are simply interested in a good discussion.  One entry in particular generated 46 comments (at the time of this post.)  I went in for a swim as well as this one really resonated with me.  Steve gets me thinking about community, culture, and the complexities of managing real life on both a personal and macro-social scale.  

Steve also discusses health, writing, movies, all kinds of stuff.  It's definitely worth a few minutes of your time.  He steps on toes sometimes, but I feel that if there are too many things that become off limits because of fear of offending someone, there won't be room to explore.  There might not even be room to think.  As long as I feel secure that a person's intentions are good, I allow them the benefit of the doubt.  I think Steve has very good intentions.