A Flurry... No, A Storm Of Good Weather News

As we face another series of storms lined up out in the Pacific, it's interesting to note where we're at as we approach the half-way point in our winter season. One of the best ways to get a basin-wide picture is to look at what the ski areas have received at various locations around the lake.

Of course, ski resorts may spin how they present their snow totals, but I can say from personal experience that their reported figures seem pretty accurate. For example, during the last few years, they were quite frank about the lack of snow.

Here's a list of the "year to date" total snowfall as of Jan 16, 2016 for various ski areas. The total snowfall can vary significantly at different points in a given resort, so I'm just reporting the highest figure. You can assume that some locations at a given resort will have had less snow.

Sugar Bowl  281 inches

Boreal  243 inches

Squaw Valley  237 inches

Alpine Meadows  231 inches

Northstar  246 inches

Mt. Rose  210 inches

Diamond Peak  163 inches

Heavenly  201 inches

Sierra At Tahoe  241 inches

Kirkwood  243 inches

(You will notice I've left out Homewood, Donner Ski Ranch, Tahoe Donner. This is only because I couldn't find year-to-date totals for those areas)

Bottom line? We had a lot of snow so far - 20 feet in several places! - significantly above average for this time of the season. Thank El Nino or good luck or those pagan snow dances some people have been performing.

And more storms are on the way. As I write this a few hours before it posts, it is snowing again, and the National Weather Service shows a significant chance of snow for the next few days. Not bad, eh?

Come on up the mountains to play in the snow!

Young Writers, And Mustangs, Too

Last week, I drove to Fernley, Nevada to give a talk about writing to 8th graders in the library at the Silverland Middle School. It was a great time.

I always love talking to kids because they are much more willing than adults to say what they think and ask the questions they are wondering about. So our conversation ranged over a wide territory. I was especially pleased when I asked if any of them had written fiction, a short story or otherwise, and most raised their hands. When I asked how long these stories were, the shortest number of pages I heard was 6 pages, and the longest number was 15.

In a world where we Boomers often think of younger generations as being hopelessly stuck on their video screens, it’s a great reassurance to be in a library surrounded by books (including mine!) and hear kids interested in, and talking about, reading and writing stories.

Writers know, of course, that stories will never go away. But we sometimes wonder if the future of storytelling is going to be exclusively in movie or video form. Once again, kids have given me reassurance that my ancient craft is not moribund. Yea!

Now comes the other cool part of going to Fernley. (For those of you who are curious, Fernley is about 30 miles east of Reno on Interstate 80, deep into the mountains of Northern Nevada.) To get there from Tahoe, I drove to Carson City and then turned east into the desert mountains, drove past the turnoff for Virginia City and continued east until I got to Silver Springs. From there it’s north a dozen miles to Fernley.

I knew this was Mustang country. And there were signs along the highway warning about the presence of wild horses. Even so, I didn’t expect to actually see wild Mustangs. But I saw 4 HERDS OF MUSTANGS! Gorgeous, majestic, frisky, energetic horses. The smallest group was 4 horses, the largest was 12 or 15 horses. Three of the groups were on nearby hillsides, and one was right next to the shoulder of the highway.

I’ve always thought that horses are the most beautiful animal on the planet. And, truth be told, Mustangs are probably no more beautiful than domesticated horses. But there’s something about their wildness… I think it may just be that when you see horses out on the open range, not fenced in, their striking beauty is more dramatic.

What a treat that day was! Talking to kids who are eager book readers and seeing Mustangs.

What, No Parking, No Carts, No Food?!

Here's what great snow will do in a ski resort town.

The week before Christmas, I had to make a delivery over by the Raley's Supermarket near Stateline on the South Shore. The parking lot was full. I drove to the farthest corner up behind the supermarket. 

Nix. Nada. Nope. 

Driving across town, I noticed that the Safeway parking lot was also full. I needed some groceries, but I didn't even try.

A week later, right before New Years, we'd run out of some basics. I went to Raley's at "The Y," also on the South Shore That lot was full as well. Lots of cars covered with snow, some that hadn't moved for hours. I would have left, but I was desperate. Gotta have something to eat.

So I loitered in the driving lanes with all the other cars. Eventually, someone pulled out right in front of me and I got a space.

Inside the store, there were no shopping carts. There were no hand baskets. The mass of people in ski clothes was impressive. I saw no locals because I was apparently the only local who'd forgotten the rule that says shop before 8:30 a.m. or after 9 p.m. during holidays. 

The produce section and the dairy section had entire shelves that were empty. The wine section was getting thin. The bread shelves were as lean as I'd ever seen. There were no employees roaming the aisles because they were all up front tending to the long checkout lines. 

When my turn came, the checkout man looked harried. "Busy, huh?" I said.

He made a weak grin. "Job security," he said. "There's a few skiers in town." An impressive understatement. "But we love 'em."

"Yes, we do." I agreed.

No parking, no carts, no food. Tahoe's tourist life blood has arrived.

Dogs Don't Use Tools, Or Do They?

Do dogs use tools?

Everyone who studies animal intelligence makes special note of species that use tools, something once thought to be the exclusive domain of people. (Oh, our hubris!)

First, what is it that qualifies as this special thing we call using tools? One of the basic tool usages is manipulating an object (a tool) to achieve some goal distinct from the tool. Usually, the tool is used to get food.

For example researchers started noticing that Chimpanzees make spears to use in hunting smaller primates. They strip certain twigs of leaves to use for fishing termites out of holes. They use stone hammers to crack open nuts. They even use some kinds of leaves to make sponges and then use the sponges for washing.

Gorillas cut sticks of certain lengths to use as walking sticks and as gauges to measure water depth.

Sea Otters use stone hammers to crack open shells.

Elephants make fly swatters. They plug up the openings to narrow water holes to keep other, smaller animals from drinking all the water. They drop logs over electric fences to short them out.

Crows drop walnuts into intersections so that vehicles will drive over them and crack them open. Then the crows watch the stoplights. When the light turns red and stops the traffic, the crows fly down and safely get the walnuts.

Dolphins pick up marine sponges and use them to sweep the bottom of the ocean to stir up prey that is hiding in the sand.

Orangutans make whistles out of leaves to use in communication.

But do dogs use tools? Yes, they are man's best friend, and we love them dearly. And we know that it is easy to teach a dog to pick up an object and do nearly anything with it. But what about a dog that dreams up some kind of tool use on its own? Come on, really? Tool use? Taking an object, doing something with it to turn it into a tool for a specific use?

Watch this video of a Beagle when its owner is gone. He moves a kitchen chair across the floor so that he can use it as a step stool to get up on the kitchen counter, open the toaster oven, and steal the food inside. It will remove any doubt you may have about dogs using tools!

Here's the link: 

Beagle When Owner Leaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyQiPWufjwU

Tahoe Blue Fire Kindle Version Free On Christmas

FREE KINDLE BOOK ON CHRISTMAS!

"A Gripping Narrative... A Hero who walks confidently in the footsteps of
Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Lew Archer." - Kirkus Reviews

Each of the past few years I've given away my latest book for free on Kindle. This year, the Kindle version of Tahoe Blue Fire goes free on Christmas morning and stays free through December 29th.

Tahoe Blue Fire currently has 186 5-star reviews on Amazon, and it spent months on Amazon's Top 100 Private Investigator bestseller list.

Already read the paper version? You may want a copy on your Kindle just for, I don't know, when you're out of town and your paper version is at home and you want a Spot fix...

Please spread the word and tell your friends about the free version.

Here's the link: Tahoe Blue Fire

And if you come upon this blog after December 29th, check back next year. I will likely have a new book out, and it will likely be free once again.

Thanks so much for your interest!

Dogs Keep Getting Smarter...

You dog owners know this feeling. You come home after a long day at work. When you open the door, your dog doesn't have her normal enthusiasm. One look at her face tells you that she got into trouble when you were gone. Her look of guilt is obvious.

But until now, scientists were almost unanimous in claiming that your perception that your dog felt guilty was nothing more than anthropomorphism, ascribing human emotions to your dog, emotions your dog isn't really capable of.

Except, oops, it turns out that those scientists are probably wrong.

Many of these questions and their answers hinge on a concept called Theory Of Mind. It is an awkward phrase that refers to the ability of humans - and elephants, dolphins, and some other primates - to understand that different individuals have different points of view. Different minds. And when one animal understands that another animal has a different perspective - a different mind - they respond accordingly, often with empathy, acknowledging and caring for another creature who may have different desires. Another individual who may, let's say, not appreciate that you ripped up the bed while they were gone.

This is important stuff, and scientists have devised lots of tests to figure out which, if any, animals might have this Theory Of Mind ability.

One of the reasons that scientists haven't spent a lot of time testing dogs may be that they simply take dogs for granted, assuming that dogs are fun, loyal pals who love to play and will learn nearly any trick if rewarded with a treat but that may not be worthy of much research. Another reason dogs may have been overlooked by scientists is that dogs are clearly not as brilliant (IN SOME WAYS) as a few other creatures.

For example, dogs fail the "mirror test." If a dog walks into a room where one of the walls is a solid mirror, he will see his reflected image, realize it is a dog, and respond with interest. But when he walks over to "that dog," he discovers that it isn't another normal dog and that it is on the other side of glass. Soon, he loses interest, because that other dog doesn't have dog smells and doesn't act much like a dog, i.e., sniffing him all over, etc. So the dog acts as if the dog in the mirror is some strange quirk that doesn't keep his interest. Most importantly, the dog never realizes that the dog in the mirror is his own image reflected back at him.

Elephants and dolphins and multiple primates DO understand mirrors. So any scientist who doesn't look at dog intelligence with awe might be forgiven. Even so, researchers kept finding evidence suggesting that dogs do understand Theory Of Mind issues. 

One of the best indicators is a series of experiments that have been done. There are lots of variations, but a typical version involves two people, let's call them Joe and Paul, a few buckets, and a treat. The basic principle is that a dog sees Joe come into a room and drop a treat in one of the buckets, let's say, the left bucket. The dog is allowed to go to the left bucket to get the treat. If Joe leaves and then returns, the dog will respond in some fashion that indicates he remembers what Joe did. So he'll likely go over to the left bucket and beg, look into the bucket, then look up at Joe, and wag, making it clear his wish for another treat.

But what if a different person, Paul, comes into the room? Will the dog engage in the same behavior, going over to the left bucket and begging for a treat? No. The dog doesn't act the same with Paul because he knows that Paul never previously brought a treat and put it in a bucket. The dog knows that Paul has a different mind than Joe. Just because Joe leaves a treat in the left bucket doesn't mean that Paul will do anything similar, and the dog understands that.

The dog knows the difference between different people, understands that each person has their own perspective, their own "mind." Dogs may not "get" mirrors, but they "get" those aspects described by Theory of Mind.

As I was researching this, I came upon one of those "Hello, duh, how did we miss the obvious" moments. While researchers were painstakingly demonstrating that dogs can understand  the concept of different "minds," they noticed something very basic. 

Your dog exhibits bad behavior now and then, but he won't get into trouble if you are in the house because your dog knows you will catch him. Leave for any length of time, however, and watch out. Not only that, but your dog can usually tell how long you will be gone.

If, when you leave your dog alone and he recognizes the signs that you are going to the corner store, he knows that you'll be gone an unpredictable length of time, and he won't get into trouble. But if he knows you're going to work for the entire day, he may well get into trouble. This clearly shows that he understands what you want and that if he's going to succumb to the temptations of trouble, he'll choose to only do it when you're gone long enough that you won't catch him in the act. 

Great Dane stealing a steak defrosting on the top of the fridge

As any dog owner knows, your dog sometimes acts guilty because he knows he's done something you don't want. He anticipates your displeasure before you even come home to discover his bad behavior.

Once again, the more we learn about dogs, the smarter they get.

Many of you also have cats, and you know that even while cats don't have the enthusiasm and the "I'm-so-eager-to-do-stuff!" attitude of dogs, they are smart. How smart? Well, those researchers made many attempts to put cats into the same scenarios as the dogs, hoping to discover if cats have "Theory of Mind" capability.

What did they find out? Nothing, because not one of the cats they tested could have cared less about the researchers' objectives. They refused to care about the treats, or look in the buckets, or pay any attention to whether Joe or Paul was in the room! No matter how smart cats are, they won't submit to what they must think are silly research projects.

Among hundreds of videos that demonstrate just how well dogs understand that what people want is not the same thing that dogs want, this is a great one: A Pit Bull waiting to be sure that his owner is gone for good before he gets up on the bed to play.
Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5bPLxU8U8

P.S. Watch the cat, too.

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Final Installment)

This is the final installment of my little treatise on what a writer can do to power-up one's novel so that it becomes a good seller and an anchor point for your future books.

H) Make sure you have an Author Page on Amazon. They're easy and free to set up once you have a book published. Just Google Amazon Author Pages to find information on how to do it. Readers increasingly go to an author's Author Page to see a list of the author's entire bibliography. The Author Page provides a "big picture" look at any given author.

I) Find every possible opportunity to get yourself and your books (notice the plural) before the reading public. This means giving talks and presentations at libraries, service clubs, schools, book clubs, festivals, street fairs, writers conferences, getting yourself on author panels, participating in every kind of book celebration. Get yourself some book stands, signs, and a table. Seize every opportunity to get in front of people, hold up your books, and say, "Hey, I wrote these books, and I think they're pretty good, and they've got great reviews. I'd love to have you check them out!"

I've written about this before. Click on the "On Writing" label on the right sidebar of this blog and peruse the many blogs I've written about this topic. Also, go to the "Events Schedule" on my website to see the kinds of events I do and have done over the years.

In sum, here is the list of things from this series you can do to make your novel stand out in what has become a ridiculously crowded marketplace:

A) Get multiple critiques of your book from other writers in your genre.

B) Move Life-Or-Death trouble up to the first paragraph, or, better yet, the first sentence of your book.

C) When you've rewritten your book, get it professionally edited.

D) Get a cover designed by a professional book cover designer.

E) Get a dot-com website (not dot-net or dot-biz, etc.) that uses your author name as its domain name.

F) Once your book is published at an affordable price ($4 or less on Kindle), you need to get reviews, especially consumer reviews on Amazon.

G) Continue writing books in the same genre, and, if at all possible, have all of your books be in a series.

H) Make sure you have an Author Page on Amazon.

I) Find every possible opportunity to get yourself and your books (notice the plural) before the reading public.

I believe that if you do these things, you will be well on your way to success. Even more, I believe that if you don't do these things, you may be operating with an insurmountable handicap.

These things are basic and were done by nearly all successful authors when they started out. Yes, this is all work, but none of these things is complicated. And compared to any other work, this is kid stuff, the easiest job in the world. Just by writing a novel, you've already demonstrated that you can take on, and succeed at, a huge challenge. 

As I said in a previous post, the hardest part of being an author is writing a really good novel. But the most important part is getting that book in front of readers. The points in this series belong to both parts.

Good luck!

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Part Seven)

This is the penultimate post in my series about what to do when the love of your life (your novel) has been disappointing you...

G) Continue writing books in the same genre, and, if at all possible, have all of your books be in a series. (Note that the series need not be the type where the books have to be read in order, as with a trilogy. The important thing is that readers get to revisit the world of characters they've come to know and care about.) Books in a series reinforce each other. Books in a series give readers a subliminal sense that each book is more important than they would otherwise think if it were a standalone. Books in a series need only be sold to a reader once, and, if that reader loved the book, they will likely buy the rest in the series.

Multiple books are critical to success as a writer. Despite the few exceptions you can think of, nearly all successful authors have written multiple books. All other things being equal, (and assuming an author's books fit these conditions I've been writing about), the more books an author writes, the more successful he or she is.

Think through the basics of your series before you bring even your first book to market (Or before you change-up and re-market your first book).

Two more things to do: Make certain that your book covers communicate the "series" aspect. You want certain graphic aspects to be shared by all of your books, same size titles and font, same design theme, etc. The other is to have a "series identifier" in the title. The goal is that when readers of one of your books see another, they immediately recognize it as part of a series with which they're already familiar. To get a visceral sense of these series identifiers, spend some time looking at the "author pages" on Amazon of your favorite authors and see how the titles and graphics relate.

Stay tuned for the final installment of what to do about an under-performing novel.

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Part Six)

This is Part Six in my ongoing series about how one might fix a novel that is languishing.

F) Once your book is published at an affordable price ($4 or less on Kindle), you need to get reviews, especially consumer reviews on Amazon. Amazon reviews have become one of the single most important things for a writer's career. The more reviews your book has, the more significant it will seem to potential readers, and the more it will sell. In fact, if you have a great, pro cover and lots of reviews, it absolutely will sell in some degree, which is no small thing considering that hundreds of thousands of books on Amazon have never sold a single copy. How can you tell? If the book doesn't have a "sales ranking" number, it has never sold. Of course, once your cover and reviews convince someone to buy your book, it is the quality of the story and its editing that determine if they spread the word and buy your future books.

The problem is, reviews for new authors don't happen spontaneously. Most estimates say that you will only get a spontaneous review on Amazon for every 200 - 300 books you sell. In the beginning, it is very difficult to sell 300 books! Do you know 300 people who will buy your book just because you are their friend? I certainly didn't when I started out.

And the unfortunate reality is that most people - even those who adore a novel - will not write a review. They simply don't think of it. They may love your book so much that they write you a glowing email, but they don't think to write a review. Unless you ask them. Then, many of them will be eager to write a review and do whatever they can to help.

So you need to ask for reviews. (Yes, I know you're an introvert. All writers are. Why else would we choose to spend thousands of hours alone, toiling away on a novel? But we have to learn to do some of those things that come naturally to extroverts. Like sending out an email to someone, even - gasp - a stranger, and ask for help.)

To ask for reviews, simply write (don't call on the phone because that puts people on the spot) and politely ask people you know, people you've heard about who read or belong to local book clubs, book bloggers, people you meet at book-related events, etc., if you may give them a signed review copy in exchange for review consideration. Stress that there is no obligation. Many people will be happy to help. They can write in their review that they received a free copy in exchange for honest review consideration. (Note that this is another reason to join writers groups, critique groups, and book clubs, as they become good possibilities for book reviews.)

Here's something to remember about asking for reviews. If any publisher wants a review in Publishers Weekly, or Library Journal, or Booklist, or dozens of other review journals, THEY HAVE TO ASK FOR IT. Reviews aren't automatic for anybody. Publishers send out ARCs (Advance Review Copies) and ask for a potential review. So asking for a review isn't groveling, it is the norm in this business.

Stay tuned for the seventh and penultimate serving of ideas...

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Part Five)

This is Part Five of my series on what you can do if your novel isn't selling.

E) Get a dot-com website (not dot-net or dot-biz, etc.) that uses your author name as its domain name. If your name is not available in the dot-com format, use your name with the addition of the word "books" or "author" or something similar (i.e., johndoethrillers .com). If people hear about your book, one of the first things they do will be to Google your name to find your website. If you can't get a dot-com domain using your name in some fashion, consider writing your book under a pseudonym that is available in the dot-com format. (Note that this may change in the future, and there are now a few successful authors who are only using Facebook. But they are a tiny minority. For the foreseeable future, you need a dot-com website as the hub that asks for readers to contact you (from which you can begin building your email list), directs readers to your blog if you have one, your social media pages, and to your books' pages on Amazon. Note the use of plural "books" instead of singular. You are writing more books, right?

A website can be expensive, but it need not be. I took a cheap website design class at the local community college and did my own website. I pay Godaddy for domain hosting for several years at a time at a very cheap rate. And in the beginning, when I got confused, I visited the website teacher at the community college for occasional help and advice.

Stay tuned for Part Six...

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Part Four)

This is Part Four of what you can do to change up your book to make it a good seller.

D) Get a cover designed by a professional book cover designer. You might say, "But my son knows Photoshop, and he can do amazing things with it." That's like saying, "My son is a great mechanic and is amazingly skillful with his hands, so I'm going to have him fix my teeth."

Yes, a professional book cover is expensive, anywhere from $400 or $500 up to $1500 or more. But this is your novel we're talking about, one of the most significant things you've ever done. Skip eating out for a few months if you must, but get a professional cover. I can't count the number of authors who've proudly handed me a copy of their new book and my first thought is to wonder why they skimped on a cover. Buy a used car instead of a new car. Do whatever it takes.

Here's a useful thought experiment. Imagine your book on a table with 20 current bestselling novels. Now imagine people walking by and, without opening any of the books, picking out the one that looks like it will have the best story. Will it be yours?

You might be wondering about my covers. Although I'm extremely happy with them, and I think my cover designer is amazing (Keith Carlson Graphic Design), I now see that I made a mistake in the beginning of having my name small because I was an unknown. I thought, "An unknown name is certainly not going to help get attention for books!" Multiple people told me otherwise, including, I think, the designer, but I didn't pay attention. (I often miss the obvious.) I've since come to realize that the author name should take the same, larger format on the first five books as it does on the next eight. More work to do, but it will be worth it. Even so, many times people come by my book exhibit and buy books having never opened them up to even read the first sentence. They say something like, "This book looks like it is really good." And then they buy it. I know, crazy! But it happens often.

Will a professional cover make your book a success? No. But a non-professional cover will almost guarantee that you won't find success.

Stay tuned for part five...

Your Novel Doesn't Sell? You Can Change That. (Part Three)

This is the third part of my series on what you can do if your novel doesn't sell. I've previously written about getting your novel critiqued and moving life-or-death trouble up to the beginning, preferably the first sentence. Next,

C) When you've rewritten your book, get it professionally edited by a book editor who isn't your friend or relative, then rewrite, then get another edit. You might say, "But my daughter majored in English and got straight As. She is a great editor." Sorry, this is like working with a critique group. In the beginning especially, the value of editing is connected to the fact that your editor is a professional editor who doesn't know you.

Note that editing is different from critique. Critique comes just after you've finished your first or second draft. Critique is about the big picture, the story arc, the characters and their motivations, the rising plot curve, the big reveals.

Editing comes after you've figured out all that other stuff and rewritten your book three or four or seventeen times. Editing is polishing. Editing is fixing all the little glitches, polishing the rough spots, making sure your POVs are consistent, that you don't have two chapter 39s (as I once did). Editing is making sure your words are spelled correctly. Editing is making sure that your book follows the dictates of a consistent style. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style says that numerals are okay in many places in your prose but that numbers should be spelled out in dialogue as people speak words not numerals. There are a hundred stylistic things like this.

Stay tuned for Part Four...