Monday, February 1, 2016

Pursuing your dreams

Once more a prompt that I have totally forgotten about. I had a wild dream last night which was supposedly about the book I was writing. However the dream was set 2000 years in the future and dealt with an alien race of people who were working with what was left of the human race.

I would say the dream was wild but it was logical. Remembering the key details is incredibly fuzzy now. I don't think I could think up the adaptation the alien race had. We are all familiar with the ways humans alter the human body with piercings, injections, tattoos and cosmetic surgery.

These aliens took a medication during gestation to get the desired result. Before I started dreaming details, there was a young couple who had a baby without the medication. Turns out there were many hold outs on their home planet.Then when I dreamed the Chinese was the linqua franca of the Roman Catholic Church, I had to work out the details of how the Earth would change in 2000 years. I woke up a few facts later.

One thing that would never change is human nature. The two aliens were clearly proud of their child. The love and kindness of people to each other is remarkable at times.

Like most people, I have encountered more of the political side of people than I like. I remember my first teaching job. The honeymoon of youth was over the day my foot stepped into the school. I wanted to quit the first month but I thought that was how real life was. Knowing what I know now, I should have quit and found another job.

I gained about 75 pounds in the two years I worked at that school. I never have gotten that weight off. My lifelong curse is that I have gained weight whenever I was under a lot of stress. Some people lose weight. I would say they are lucky but there are no winners.

In the United States, our politics have always been crazy. But even by our standards, they are incredibly nuts.

It's the day to day politics that affect us. Politics is making you do what someone else wants for a perceived benefit to yourself. I say perceived because it usually benefits someone else.

Today, my mind has been on piracy. Someone steals an artist's work and makes a profit selling it to a consumer at a discount. The consumer gets a discount and essentially the thief makes money off a product they stole much like the shady men selling electronics from the trunk of their car.

When you think of piracy, you usually think of super rich rock stars. In my hometown there are former rockers who became international in the eighties and they work to make ends meet today. One had a massive heart attack and had to create a U-fund me account until he qualified for social security.  Some musicians sustain themselves on the stage and elsewhere long enough to make enough money to invest and recreate themselves as musicians or live well. Most do not do as well.

One thing I believe in an artist has a right to be paid. I searched about writer's whose work is pirated. Aspiring to write, I do understand the unrewarded work. I do feel how many feel about their work not being recognized by the proverbial wheel of fortune. In the same vein, I feel a little aggravated with writers who do not recognize that you buy their book to read and not proselytize it to others.

Piracy of ebooks is a terrible shame. I read someone's blog and their books which are considerable have all been pirated. I assume he is an indie writer and I have read two of his books. This bothers me in that most writers make so little off of their work in the first place and then have to contend with pirates. There should be much better prosecution of these people.

What bothers me more are people who knowingly buy pirated books. Do you really want a thief to make money over the actual author? I read comments on one tech site discussing how easy it was to steal a text file off of kindle and convert it to another file for ease in selling.

Two asinine comments were that people buy used books and how little money some people live on in parts of the world. At least with a used book, a royalty was paid at one time. Secondly, a book written in the United States and bought by an American has nothing to do with poverty in a third world country. Again, why should you help a thief profit.

An author has to fight to protect their work. Like most thief, it surprises you in how it happens. No one deserves it.

I have played with politics my entire life. Won some, lost some, was played a fool by many, but, I am still here. I've tried to be honest. I have a close relative tell me I was a fool for being so nice. I do know a con thinks kindness is weakness. I have met that person and stood my ground. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost.

You don't have a choice at times. But I do have a choice in how I treat other people. I also have a choice in supporting the actual owner of goods versus a pirate. And hey, I fill two or three paper bags with books when they are on sale at a used book fundraiser. But I don't buy from a thief.

Now what in the hell does my mention of politics have to do with this. We have a lot of virulent speech today which will be snowballing as the year progresses. You will be spitting in the wind to try to counter most of it. But on occasion, speak up your descent. Politicians are just a reflection of the general population. I don't hate Donald Trump but I do hate his crude view of the world. Statesmanship will never describe his style. However, he is just parroting whatsome people want to hear.


18 comments:

  1. If it's on the internet, you can pirate it. Sad but true. If they'd kill the big main sites, that would help matters. As long as you pay for cable or buy the movie, I can sorta see pirates of that, as ease of use mostly. But taking from anyone for something you never paid for, nope. Politics are nuts down there, enjoy.

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    1. I don't think I could dream a wilder show than our politics.

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  2. You make some very valid points here. Piracy is a problem but as long as we have people thinking up ways to obtain what isn't theirs, I don't think it will ever stop. It's unfortunate.

    That was some dream!!! Wow.

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    1. It is hopeless. So many who make their money outside the law would make as much within with their ingenuity. Cheaters just grate on me.

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  3. I found a forum once where one of the threads was where to find my eBooks for free. Yeah, sad.
    You should write down what you remember of that dream. That would make an awesome story.

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    1. That would be discouraging to find your ebook for free. The flip is that your story would be worth stealing. You do have to accept some theft unfortunately.

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  4. I don't get the piracy thing either. So many authors give out freebies, there's just no need to hit pirate sites.

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    1. So true. I looked up links for free copies and they all had a link to who knows where to sign on. Appealing to greed is a good way to scam people. Anyway - such is life.

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  5. That's me too! I'm a stress eater. When I was married to my first husband and dealing with some very hard times, I gained 120 pounds. We divorced and within 2 years I have lost 87 pounds. I still have more to go obviously but it's amazing what stress does to some of us.

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    1. Wow, I am so proud of you. Stress does take a toll.

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  6. Hmm...could make an interesting NEXT book...especially the part in the first paragraph of this blog! If it makes you feel better, I gain weight whether I'm stressed or not. I just eat...whether I'm happy or sad or stressed or bored!

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    1. That is true for me too. However, I know when I get bad news, I tend to eat. Funny about the dream, I've got a story working from the idea. I want to write real stuff and I'm writing all this sci fi stuff.

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  7. Hope you're having a good evening, Ann.

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  8. Love your dream! I do hope you write something out of it. I am trying so hard not to deal with politics this year. I get so frustrated by all of the BS both sides of the camp spew. As for piracy, nope. I won't buy something if I know it was pirated. I prefer to have my money go to those hard working artists. Enjoy this post very much!

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    1. I get what you say Ravyne. I study and vote. Who wins, who cares. Life has no guarantees anyway.

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  9. You know, people say a lot of negative things about Amazon but one thing they always do is pay the authors and publishers for their work, and keep opening up new venues for writers to sell books. Piracy online is so easy it's hard to keep a handle on it.

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    1. You are right about the ebook royalties. They have been super for writers. I just feel concerned about their monopoly. I don't like that they use everyone's book in the prime program to attract purchasers but the money is only distributed by the pages read. If someone pays and does not read any, shouldn't that be divided between Amazon and all the contributors.

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