Publication of The Martian Marauders

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Michael D. Smith

The Martian Marauders available from Double Dragon PublishingThe Martian Marauders, the first of three novels in my Jack Commer science fiction series, has just been published by Double Dragon Publishing as an eBook, in a variety of formats including EPUB (for most eReaders including Nook), PDF, Mobi Pocket (for Kindle), and Rocket eBook.  In addition it’s available through the iTunes store.  All these formats can be downloaded from the product page at:

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-918-0

The book sells for $5.99, but as long as it remains “new” the price is $5.09.

I’m excited to be participating in the e-publishing revolution (which has a curious, synergistic tie to my duties as Technology Librarian at McKinney Public Library) with this book and with my earlier experiments with self-publishing my novella The First Twenty Steps on Barnes and Noble’s PubIt and amazon.com’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

Double Dragon also has the second and third novels in the Jack Commer series in the pipeline: Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, and Nonprofit Chronowar, and I’m working on final edits for these now.

The Martian Marauders – Synopsis

A series of inexplicable solar system disasters in the near future, including exploding gas giants and asteroids hurled into the sun, forces a panicky acceleration of space technology and weaponry.  But humanity has not learned much from Mars exploration and the discovery of Star Drive, and by 2033 the United System Space Force has not only wrecked the earth with the planet-destabilizing Xon bomb, but in evacuating the remnants of Earth’s population to Mars, has also somehow overlooked an indigenous, intelligent race which is quite displeased by the arrival of two billion shellshocked humans.

By June 2034 the native Martians have risen in rebellion, led by their new human emperor, the traitor Sam Hergs. Amid family squabbles arising from the presence of four Commer brothers aboard his ship, Captain Jack Commer finds himself in the deep Martian desert battling Martian insurgents armed with shatterguns that crack their victims into millions of jagged pieces of glass.

How to purchase

At the top of the purchase page, the links for US (United States) and CA (Canada) take you to the iTunes store for either country.

Otherwise, to get to the formats for Adobe PDF, Rocket eBook, MS Reader, Palm, HieBook, iSilo, Mobi Pocket (This is the format for the Kindle), HTML, and EPUB (This last is the new standard and will work for most eReaders including the Nook), click the Add to Cart button.

You will need to create a free Double Dragon account or log into an existing one before you complete a purchase.  The process is similar to ordering a book through amazon.com (add to cart, then check out, then pay, then download), but the site does direct you to a third-party e-commerce site and then returns you to Double Dragon for the actual download.  You can use credit or debit card, or PayPal.

Once your purchase has been completed, the eBook title will automatically be moved to your eBook Shelf.  From there you’ll see the option to download in the above formats.  Choose EPUB for most eReaders.

(By the way, you can rate the novel with the links to the left–but you don’t need to do that before reading it!  The novel will persist on your eBook Shelf and you can download it again in different formats if you wish, as well as eventually rate anything on your shelf.)

When you get the dialog box that asks whether you want to Open or Save, I recommend clicking “Save” and just downloading it to the place of your choice on your computer.  That’s how I got the EPUB version. (”Open” may work, but didn’t seem to want to for me.)

Using the EPUB as an example: when you open your newly-saved file (9781554049189.epub), Adobe Digital Editions opens and from there you can drag it to your eReader in Library View.  Or you can read it in Adobe Digital Editions.

If you do not yet have the free Adobe Digital Editions software, I am positive some dialog box will pop up and offer this to you!  It should also prompt you to create an Adobe ID.

The Mobi Pocket format (file name 1-55404-918-0.prc) should open in your Kindle (You can simply copy it from your computer to the Kindle via USB) or your Kindle emulator on your PC. 

The book is also available from Barnes and Noble and amazon.com.

Any and all comments you might care to make, positive or negative, are welcome!  I’ve learned a lot about e-publishing and writing in the last year but there is always more to grasp.

copyright 2012 by Michael D. Smith

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The 2011 Harvest

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Michael D. Smith

Several years back I began compiling a timeline of what writing projects I was working on.  It’s always interesting to see how much builds up over time, and it’s easy to keep up with–just note the start and stop dates.  But I was struck by how much writing I did in 2011, which also saw my self-publishing my novella The First Twenty Steps on PubIt and Kindle Direct Publishing, and the acceptance of the first three novels of my Jack Commer science fiction series, The Martian Marauders, Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, and Nonprofit Chronowar, by Double Dragon Publishing.  Although I had a two art shows in 2011 at Dallas libraries (a January sculpture exhibit at Park Forest Library and an August exhibit of huge paintings at the Renner Frankford Library), writing has definitely pushed visual art into the background over the past year.  Not that this will be a permanent state, but I’m reassessing my approach to visual art now.  Meanwhile, here’s the harvest of 2011:

12/19/10-1/1/11 The First Twenty Steps:  revision and MS. print
1/4/11-1/7/11 Oliver: scan, corrections, and MS. print (includes introduction)
1/15/11-1/16/11 “Chapter 32”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/18/11-5/12/11 Seven of Cups/Beyond DamnStar: Draft 1
1/22/11-1/26/11 “Tollhouse”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/23/11-1/24/11 “Tollhouse”: Introduction
1/28/11 The First Twenty Steps: published on PubIt
1/28/11-2/1/11 “Where Eagles Have Unfortunately Landed”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/28/11-2/4/11 “Damage Patrol”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/28/11-1/31/11 “Alan Ice on Morningcide Drive”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/28/11-2/3/11 “The Highland Park Cadillac Races”:  scan, corrections, and MS. print
1/28/11-2/3/11 “The 66,000 M.P.H. Bicycle”: scan, corrections, and MS. print
2/4/11 “The 66,000 M.P.H. Bicycle – Introductory Notes”
2/6/11-2/10/11 “The 20 Steps Blog Post”
2/9/11 Bullshit Poet #2: Resurrection: scan, corrections, and MS. print
2/9/11 Bullshit Poet #3: The Zen of Cat: scan, corrections, and MS. print
2/11/11-2/16/11 Oliver the Giant Cat #6: Seeds of Sunshine: scan, corrections, and MS. print
2/12/11-2/13/11 Oliver the Giant Cat #5: Spasm of Terror: keying in and MS. print
2/14/11-2/18/11 Oliver the Giant Cat #7: Continuation!: scan, corrections, and MS. print
2/14/11-2/18/11 Oliver the Giant Cat #8: Librarians, You’ll Never Get Me: creation of final version from 1995 MS., notes, with new introduction and MS. print
2/26/11-3/6/11 “Literary Success”
3/5/11-3/13/11 “Dystopias—and I’ve Written my Share”
3/14/11 The Martian Marauders: accepted for publication by Double Dragon Publishing
3/18/11 The First Twenty Steps: edits and upload to PubIt
3/22/11-3/27/11 “An Introduction to Synthetic Thinking”: scan, edits, and MS.
3/22/11-3/27/11 “Intro to Intro” (introduction to “Synthetic Thinking”)
4/10/11-4/11/11 “The Story of Lester Quartz’s Fantastic Journey, Volume 1” (essay about the graphic novel)
4/27/11-5/1/11 Jack Commer, Supreme Commander: title change dropping “USSF” and minor edits to content
4/29/11-5/2/11 Nonprofit Ladies (now Nonprofit Chronowar): minor edits to content
5/2/11 Jack Commer, Supreme Commander and Nonprofit Ladies (now Nonprofit Chronowar): accepted for publication by Double Dragon Publishing
5/17/11-5/21/11 “Update on the Blog”
5/19/11-5/26/11 “Helium Street”: scan, edits, and MS.
5/19/11- Akard Draft I: scan project begun.  Initial manuscript pulled together 7/15/11, but a final edit remains to be made.
5/21/11-5/27/11 “Helium Street Introduction”
5/23/11-5/27/11 “Akard Draft I Introduction Before the Undertaking”
5/23/11- “Akard I – Introduction Diary”
5/23/11-7/17/11 “Akard Draft 1 – Introduction”
6/29/11-7/9/11 The Holy Dark Ages: reformatted and MS. print
7/26/11 “The Martian Holes”: scan and MS. print
7/26/11-7/28/11 “Emerson’s Vast Hotel”: scan and MS. print
7/31/11 Executed Beauty title changed to The Psychobeauty (formerly Awesome Beauty of This Earth, then Odd Planetary Beauty, then Executed Beauty)
8/1/11-8/5/11 The Soul Institute: preparation for Draft 5
8/5/11-9/14/11 The Soul Institute: Draft 5
8/18/11-8/19/11 “What Does Your Muse Think of Your Writing Career?”
8/21/11 The Fifty First State of Consciousness: reformatting to 1 file and current format (no print)
8/21/11 Nova Scotia: reformatting to 1 file and current format (no print)
8/22/11-8/27/11 “Homage to the Wiess Cracks”
9/10/11-9/11/11 February 1972 Letter: corrections to scan, introduction, and print
9/14/11-9/16/11 The Soul Institute: MS. and single-spaced Times New Roman 10 print
9/16/11-10/18/11 “The Soul Institute” (essay)
9/1711-9/18/11 “Novels Inventory, September 2011”
10/1/11- Sortmind:  new notes for novel updating
10/8/11-11/9/11 Akard Drearstone: notes, revision, and single-spaced Times New Roman 10 print
1/26/11-12/26/11 Seven of Cups/Beyond DamnStar: Draft 2
12/30/11 The Martian Marauders edits for Double Dragon Publishing

copyright 2012 by Michael D. Smith

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Take My Word for It

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

Mandala 312No one wants to take the author’s word for it that his or her writing is good–not the slush pile reader, not the editor, not the editorial board, not the marketing staff, not the sales force, not the average reader who’s never heard of you, not even your friends when you post a list of all your novels on your web site.

 Because:

1) Reading and evaluating a novel involves a commitment to spend a great deal of time with a work.  We all evaluate whatever we’re reading–we do so every second we’re reading, from page one to the end, usually two hundred or more pages, at perhaps between ten and sixty pages an hour.  We evaluate the worth of these verbal constructions to our own lives, whether for entertainment or learning or understanding. Reading is work, and so is evaluating the worth of what we’re reading.  It’s not undertaken lightly.

2)  We need to establish trust with the author, and while that trust can only finally be fully established through the process of reading and evaluating, it can at least be heralded via some form of a letter of introduction.  If you don’t have that letter of introduction, your work is regarded as a threat to a reader’s time.  He or she will regard the list of novels on your web site with distrust.  But if another person you trust tells you that you must read this book, you’re be inclined to approach it with a similar trust.  If a reputable publishing company markets the book, you’re also predisposed to consider the work with trust.  But as has been affirmed repeatedly, word of mouth is the most powerful means of communicating trust in a work.  The Internet translation of that term, “going viral,” has come to have the connotation of “the latest distraction of the hour.”  Which is quite a different matter.

The quality of the writing itself is all that matters.  And sooner or later, one person, then two, then three, then more, start finding the worth of your work.  That’s how it must be.  Your own letter of introduction to your work really doesn’t mean too much.  Because no one takes your word for it.

copyright 2011 by Michael D. Smith

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On the Essential Meaninglessness of the Word “Metaphysical”

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

Ceramic Shadow RealmCome on, really–what DOES it mean?

Sending query letters to literary agents was one of my more useless wastes of time and energy, but one submission–and it might have been the last one to an agent, a couple years ago–brought me up short and made me clarify myself.

The agent had a detailed online form and it was almost like a job interview filling it out.  I couldn’t rely on my glib query letter after a while–I was being asked things about my purpose and qualifications, about marketing, possible competing titles, and my proposed audience, and it was such a struggle to keep up that, after finishing as best I could, I finally thanked the agent in the comments section for having such a challenging web form.

But the most important insight to come out of looking at that form was that I finally realized that the word “metaphysical,” which I’d been using to describe my work, is nonsensical.  I really have no idea what I mean by “metaphysical,” and I’m not sure anyone else does, either.  It may mean “spiritual,” pertaining to spirit or soul matters, but it can mean so many different things–most of them having to do with “weird”–that I saw how idiotic it was to rely on it as an introduction to my work. Continue reading →

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The Soul Institute

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

The Soul Institute copyright 2011 Michael D. SmithI finally returned to this novel and finished it last month.  After an initial two drafts I’d finished what I thought was a final manuscript of The Soul Institute in December 1999, and I was proud of the result.  Yet, inexplicably, I placed the manuscript securely in the desk drawer for over a decade.  I think this was primarily because I assumed (I’m sure quite correctly) that an offering of 1,064 pages and 266,000 words by an unknown author was way too long to be seriously considered by traditional print publishers–and I had no concept of the e-publishing industry which was in its infancy at the time.  I think the idea was to get one of my shorter novels published first and then TSI might be considered for a second one.  But whatever the excuse, the real feeling I’ve had all this time about the 1999 TSI is shame that I didn’t even try to send it out.  Putting it in the drawer was a signal that I was out of contact with my art.  Yes, I was always writing nonstop and developing my craft, but now I see that doesn’t really mean much if you’re afraid to even try for publication.  That feels like being 70% a writer.  It feels as if you yourself are consigned to the desk drawer.  And I didn’t realize until later that 70% commitment to anything is really psychic pollution. Continue reading →

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Novels Inventory, September 2011

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

Following is a list of my novels and novellas with terse little elevator pitch summaries and some notes as to their fates.  If there are novel title links, they lead to their detailed info pages on the mothership, www.sortmind.com.

Just Finished

The Soul Institute, 2011
Himal Steina realizes his recurring dream of a mythic return to the sanctuary of a vast foggy university of Soul when he’s appointed Writer in Residence at the Soul Institute and falls in love with one of its numerous faculty goddesses.  But as the Soul Institute splinters under the weight of its unhinged Director and his secret society of Overcrons, the Director’s teenage son consolidates command of the Paint Sniffing Gang, and panic and violence build in the small coastal Texas college town.

Published or About to be Published

The Martian Marauders, 2012
To be published Jan. 2012 by Double Dragon eBooks
After the evacuation of the Earth’s population to Mars, the crew of the Typhoon I spaceship must fight native Martian terrorists led by their new human Emperor, political agitator and traitor Sam Hergs.  But Captain Jack Commer compromises the mission when he kidnaps the Emperor’s consort and falls in love with her.  Book One of The Jack Commer series.

Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, 2012
To be published by Double Dragon eBooks
Jack Commer brings poor negotiating skills to the war with the fascist Alpha Centaurian Empire, losing his crew to Centaurian brainwashing as he and his wife are sent to be tortured on a barren planet.  Book Two of The Jack Commer series.

Nonprofit Chronowar, 2012
To be published by Double Dragon eBooks
Ranna Kikken creates The Committee to End Suffering on Planet Earth at her nonprofit Cat Farm, but its first conference in 2020 is destroyed when intruder Joe Commer time travels from 2036 to lecture CTESOPE on the coming breakdown of the solar system and the destruction of the Earth itself in 2033.  Book Three of The Jack Commer series.

The First Twenty Steps, 2011
Available as an eBook from amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com
(Novella)  An ex-convict finds himself mixed up in a motorcycle gang’s plan to heist a hyperspatial supercomputer. Continue reading →

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Homage to the Wiess Cracks

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

The Two Hundred Page Thousand Page Wiess Crack, ca. late 4/74I never thought much about my stint as editor of the Wiess Crack until I began to see it as another piece of lost energy I wanted to reclaim from the beginning of my writing life.

In the small enclosed world of Rice University, late 1971 to May 1974, there was “word of mouth” about the Wiess Crack, a weekly humor publication consisting of two legal sized sheets folded in half to make an eight-page magazine.  It was of course only one of a million things going on in that environment, but the Crack had achieved that word of mouth status, and it was read, talked about, looked forward to each week.  As a web site at Rice today it would likely be ignored, just one of many accessible but psychically neutral ways to waste time.

Wiess rhymes with Rice, with a long “i.”  The silly pun of the title wouldn’t work otherwise.  Some friends from high school in Northbrook, Illinois wondered if I’d suddenly developed a speech impediment in 1970.  Hadn’t I told them I was going way south to “Rice”?  What was this “Wiess” business?  And then I’d explain that Wiess College was my residential college, one of eight at Rice …

Some of the Wiess Crack’s popularity was due to its previous incarnation as a dull college student humor rag long before I took it over, as well as the fact that it was free and traditionally placed outside the dining commons of all the residential colleges shortly before Thursday evening dinner.  However, I and my two principal accomplices, Bear and Joe, took it in an entirely new direction that caused renewed interest and controversy.

Continue reading →

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What Does Your Muse Think of Your Writing Career?

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

What is Career Art?  Art executed in the pursuit of success and recognition, seeking opportunities, rising, gaining influence and power.  How is this any different at all from rising through an insurance organization?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a career in any profession–we need insurance agents, believe it or not.  We’re all interested in making a living doing something we love.  The point is that the art career with a life of its own no longer has anything to do with exploration or truth.  Maybe that’s why, as an example, musicians can put out such crap along with a few good songs.  You’re working fast, there are a million things going on, you trust your talent to help you keep rising, you have to fill out an album, you convince yourself this is good stuff.  Other people’s agendas and your own chaotic inner forces are pushing in so many directions, and opportunities are rare and must be grasped quickly.  There is little time to read, think, feel, evaluate, step back and see the whole.

In the same way, in your busy writing career you might try to pawn off a lesser quality chapter, a lesser quality character, a lesser quality novel, and naturally you have some reasons to justify this: other parts of this novel were excellent, this lesser section is nevertheless integral to the plot, I can’t be perfect all the time, I don’t have time to revise this, I need to move on to the next writing project, I don’t want to know my work is lesser quality, readers have no choice but to put up with it, hey, this is my blind spot and it’s none of your damn business anyway!

Continue reading →

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What Passes for an Artist Statement

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

I don’t find artist statements useful. In fact, most of the numerous ones I’ve read strike me as obligatory but unintelligible fluff. But, as I begin to wallow into yet another reassessment of my visual art, I resurrect an older essay, “Visual Art 2007,” which I’m removing from www.sortmind.com and revising here. The essay still rings true but a few edits have updated it for 2011.

Manifestos come about because we’re battered by the hurricane of universal energy and we want to fix our methods, our shelters against that wind.  But manifestos themselves get remixed into that hurricane. They wink in and out of existence.

The universe is looking for vessels into which it can pour its raw energies. We need to enhance ourselves to receive these gifts. To demand that the universe merely give us gifts (“I am an artist!”), to aggressively seek the transcendence which accompanies the gift, is self-defeating. That’s why artists burn out, go on ego trips, become dishonest, squander their energies.

We want methods because we want to be assured that the universe will still call on us. But our methods soon become empty rituals. We may have seasons of a certain way of doing things, but we need to be open to changing everything entirely.  We need to recognize that any process has to be reevaluated when the universe decides that something new is to be poured. Continue reading →

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Large Paintings Show at the Renner Frankford Library, August 3-30

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Michael D. Smith

Energy Flood 1In August 2011 I’ll have four large paintings showing at the Renner Frankford library auditorium in Dallas.  The link–URL also shown at the end of the post–takes you to the Renner page with hours and location.  The show runs August 3-30 (hanging day 8/2 and pickup day 8/31).

This 7’ x 7.5’ canvas is one of four large ones I’ve done this year to exorcise an ancient demon of wanting to paint extremely large.  Actually, I might want to paint these sizes again, but the vast scale of these unstretched canvases changes my procedures and materials dramatically, not to mention realities like supply expense, transportation, and difficulties in lighting and photographing.  And the fact that often you’re standing in the middle of the painting while executing it.  Also it made me wonder how pour artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Jackson Pollock dealt with wrinkles on the unstretched canvas.  As well as cat hair and other miscellaneous debris.  A large unstretched canvas has a surprising weight and is a challenge even to pick up or roll properly.

The original canvas I worked on was twice this size–7’ x 15’.  Maybe I was trying to set some sort of personal size record and so offended the muse somehow, but when I painstakingly C-clamped the heavy awkward thing to a makeshift wall in my studio and finally took a look at it, I realized how bad it was.  It was so large I could not get back far enough to take a decent picture of it.  It was horribly dark and dull and static and ponderous, over-planned and … mediocre.  I found myself unwilling to even look at the thing.  I already knew it was a wrong-headed mistake, but when my wife Nancy gave some excellent comments on exactly why it was mediocre, I was consciously able to crystallize why I needed to cut the canvas in half and simply have fun doing some total sloppy improvisation on two halves.

Energy Floods 1 and 2

Since all four of these large paintings are unstretched, they can be rolled and stuffed into my car from dashboard to rear window; however, this process mandates curtailing my usual love for built up texture.  I wanted the canvases as light as possible, and with a flat surface to minimize damage while rolled up or being transported.

If I ever take it into my head to staple these canvases onto stretchers, which would reduce the overall size by a minimum five inches on a size, I might consider revising them with more texture and some additional color.  In their unstretched state they seem like rough drafts of paintings, with all the awkward exuberant energy of a rough draft of anything.  I found myself thinking as I did these large works that these were depictions of large paintings, something you might commission an artist to do as backdrop for a theatrical production about an artist who painted large scale …

copyright 2011 by Michael D. Smith

link to Renner location and hours: http://dallaslibrary2.org/branch/renner.php

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