How Not to Get Rich Quick

Quickie post here. I want to scrub the bad taste of this out of my mouth as fast as I possibly can.

The setup: for the last eight years I've been doing freelance work for a company that shall remain anonymous. Things were great for the first several years. A while back, though, the work flow began to slow, even before Covid screwed up the world. Over the past year it's gotten less and less. There's a better-than-good chance it could stop completely. Maybe it already has. We're already a week into August and I haven't gotten any assignments yet.

The problem: I've been relying on that income. I've got Social Security, but it's not quite enough to cover my monthly bills. I had savings, but sudden tax and health issues earlier in the year all but wiped those out. If my job is truly done, I need to find replacement funds before the winter heating and insurance bills hit.

I know: I was supposed to be writing and submitting all this time. I didn't, and now the bill for my complacency is about to come due. So I went looking for replacements, something to bring in some quick extra cash. What's known in today's world as a "side hustle."

Which is how I came across the "job" of answering surveys for pay.

Yes, this is a thing. There are legitimate sites that will pay you to give them your opinion on just about anything, from your favorite foods to what car you'd love to own to who you think should be President. For 5-30 minutes of your time, you receive from 3 to 200 or more points for completing a survey (1 point = 1 cent; 100 points = a dollar, etc.) You can spend as much or as little time on it as you want, and fill out as many or as few in a day as you care to. When you're ready to cash out, you redeem your points for gift cards, prepaid debit cards, or send the funds to PayPal or your bank account. The sites I'm referring to are places like Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, Inbox Dollars and Opinion Outpost, all verified by the Better Business Bureau and certified legit. Testimonials from satisfied survey-takers abound, with stories of cashing in for hundreds of dollars a week for work you do in your spare moments.

These are, of course the exceptions. The sites themselves warn this isn't supposed to take the place of a job. However, modest amounts like $1-$5 a day is easily doable. In a month's time, that mounts up. If you're in the habit of squandering four to six hours a day or more playing video games--as I did all too often while battling my gaming addiction--why not fill out surveys instead and at least make money for your wasted time? There are even sites (like Swagbucks) that will pay you to play games and watch videos, which I was doing for free. They don't pay much, but it still beats nothing.

But it doesn't beat it by much. Here's what none of the sites tell you: these surveys are put out by companies, ad agencies and marketing firms. Their ultimate goal is to sell a lot of crap to as many people as possible for as much as they can charge. They'll happily pay to get the opinions of--and personal info on--people with jobs, people with kids, young adults active on social media, rich and active retirees, and diversity consumers because diversity is hot right now and those markets have barely been tapped. If you're in one or more of these demographics then yes, it's possible you could earn yourself a hefty bit of  side change for telling others what you like and don't like about a product.

If you're a single, straight white woman over 60 with no kids or grandkids to indulge and very little in the way of disposable income, not so much.

Here was my experience. Thursday I took the plunge and signed up for Survey Junkie. I got 50 points right off the bat just for signing on. So far, so good. I took my first surveys and within an hour or so had earned my first dollar. Yay, me!

That's about as good as it got. It was all downhill from there.

Yeah, there were surveys with big payouts. A lot of 200 pointers, some for 300 or more. Maybe if I'd qualified for more of those I'd have stuck it out. In order to get those points you have to fill out the survey, and in order to do that, you have to qualify. I'd spend 5-10 minutes answering the same background questions over and over--What is your zip code? What is your age? Are you male or female?--and then get confronted with "The rest of the questions on this 180-point survey aren't relative to you, so we'll stop you here. But here's 3 points as a consolation prize." Thanks a heap. Y'know how long it takes to earn a dollar when you have to do it three points at a time? I don't, because I knew doing the math would depress me. At least the "this survey is filled" message came up right away, before I'd wasted too much time. I got a bunch of those, too.

But I hung in there, stopping back sporadically through Friday and Saturday. I got lucky and scored a couple of decent ones. By Sunday I'd gotten my total up to $8.70. That's for, what, about ten hours of work spread out over three days? Not to mention they were offering me fewer and fewer surveys, and even those were cutting me off before the maximum payout.

Then the site offered me a chance to sign up directly with the marketing outfits. That's how I ended up on Opinion Outpost. I figured that would suit me better. I've got opinions on all sorts of things. Except the same thing happened on this new site, at an even lower payout rate. They'd take my personal info and then tell me I didn't qualify. Guess I'm not the droid they're looking for.

I was signed up with Opinion Outpost for roughly two hours. Then I got frustrated and quit. They can keep the dime I earned. Then I went back to Survey Junkie and redeemed my 870 points for a cash transfer to my bank. Once that went through I quit them too. The tension and frustration just wasn't worth it. I actually feel less stressed now. The good part is that it's motivated me to start writing again, now that I know how hideous some of the alternatives are. After that, sitting at a keyboard and pounding out words with no guarantee anyone will pay me for them doesn't feel all that bad.

Your mileage may vary, of course. You could be one of those fortunate $100-or-more-a-week people. And I could win the lottery. That's all writing's ever been, when you think about it. And now it's back to fiction for me. Caveat emptor, y'all.   

Your Tax Dollars at Work

This incident happened a while ago, back around January. I’m just now getting around to posting the story. Yes, I still have serious issues with procrastination and work avoidance. I’m working on it.

Anyway. I’ve been a fan of comic books since I learned to read, although I don’t buy any on a regular basis any more. I got older, my tastes changed, comics changed, comics got more and more expensive and I needed the money for groceries. I still keep up with what’s going on with Marvel and DC, and I’ve seen most of the movies from both companies. (On DVD from the library. Movies got too expensive years ago. Not to mention crappy.) Avengers: Endgame seemed like a good stopping point: it was everything the comics I grew up with used to be but aren’t any more. The last movie I saw in a theater was Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that was mostly for the nostalgia factor; Tobey Maguire will always be my movie Spider-Man. The first comic book I’ve bought in years is the topic of this blog.

For the non-fans, a quick catch-up: Marvel and DC aren’t the only two companies, just the biggest. These days Marvel (Spider-Man; the X-Men) is owned by Disney, while Time/Warner owns DC (Batman and Superman). Then we have Image, Dark Horse, IDW and a bunch of other smaller companies floating around the edges. Plus there are independent creators who use crowdfunding platforms like Indigogo to bankroll their publishing efforts. All of these involve physical print endeavors. There may be other creators whose work is solely available on the internet, but I’m not familiar with them.

And now we’ve got Eric July.

Like me and a lot of other long-time fans, July had stopped buying books from the Big Two because he wasn’t happy with the direction the companies had taken and the disrespect he felt was being shown his childhood heroes. So he decided to make his own comics. Except he didn’t stop at just that. Instead of going the crowdfunding route, he chose to eliminate all the middlemen and start his own comic book company, creating, writing, printing and distributing graphic novels starring his own creations in his own shared universe. He hired an artist, put the book together, created some merchandise (shirts and posters), promoted all this on his YouTube channel and, in July 2022, opened up shop with a 70+-day sales campaign. The comic was a 90-some page graphic novel on quality paper, priced at $35. July’s stated campaign goal was $100,000 in sales.

By the end of the campaign, he had earned $3.7 million. That’s million with a capital M, folks. Not bad for his first-ever comic book.

There’s more to his story—his second issue’s sales campaign is currently ongoing, and a lot of folks in the industry and on YouTube and Twitter are not at all pleased by his success. But that’s not what this story’s about. This is just the background. We now return to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

I wasn’t part of the initial campaign. I came in when the mudslinging started. It made for entertaining viewing on July’s YouTube channel. I looked into his website and decided $35 was too much for my wallet at that point in time. However, my finances picked up after Christmas, so for my January birthday I decided to treat myself and support a fellow writer and former mainstream comics fan by buying a copy of his book.

This is where I ran afoul of the US Postal Service.

I had no trouble placing my order and paying for my purchase. Mr. July had no trouble accepting my money and shipping me my book. They even sent me an email letting me know the order had been filled, with a tracking number so I could follow its journey. (The new company is in Texas, while I’m in Pennsylvania.) I had fun checking in once or twice a day to see how things were going. Anticipation soared when I saw the book had arrived at the Lancaster distribution center and would probably be delivered at my house the following day.

Here’s where the system broke down.

The next morning I logged on and clicked the tracking info. The book was still in Lancaster. Then it was en route to Ephrata. Then it was in Ephrata. Then communication stopped. There was no information; the book had disappeared. Oh wait, there it was. For reasons known only to the postal gods, my package, which had made it all the way from Texas and safely arrived at the Ephrata Post Office, which is maybe a mile from where I live, had inexplicably been rerouted and delivered to the Christiana Post Office on the other side of the county. Uh, whut?

 Time to take personal action. Armed with my tracking number, I drove over to the PO and asked them what happened. They didn’t know. They had no explanation. The best they could give me was that the package had somehow been mislabeled and sent to Christiana by mistake. How did it get mislabeled? Shrugs all around. It must have had the right label on it to start with or it wouldn’t have been sent to Ephrata. So the mislabeling had to have happened at the Ephrata Post Office. Why and by whom? Again, no concrete answers. It was probably a machine because we all know government employees never make mistakes. All they could do was have it sent back to the Lancaster distribution center and start over. All I could do was go home and wait.

Well, they did get it sorted out by that evening, as I saw on the tracking info. It was returned to the Ephrata PO by morning and I finally got it by noon. The book was in good shape. Nice quality product. The story and art wasn’t bad. Better than I’ve seen from a lot of offers out of the Big Two lately. If Mr. July can keep this up, he’s got a winner on his hands. Can’t say the same for the Post Office.

This may wind up becoming a continued story. Like I said, July’s currently running his second campaign for issue #2. This time I ordered early. He’s going to start shipping orders out at the end of this month, via UPS. UPS has announced it’s going on strike at the start of August. Here we go again. Well, I’ve still got all my old comic books stashed in the closet. At least I’ll have something to read.

 

  

Here's Where the Fun Begins

 

I might as well admit it now: the series has officially gone on the back burner. It’s not dead, it’s just resting. The side project is now the main project. I’ve been typing up the longhand in between paid assignments, doing spot research as I go along. Eventually I’ll reach the point where I’ll need to go to Philadelphia to scout locations. Sure, I could do that through Google Maps and websites, but where’s the fun in that? I deliberately chose Philly as my location because it’s within driving distance. Any excuse to get out of the house and not work.

Currently I’ve hit a bit of a snag. I read over the longhand before I type it up, in case I need to fix, add, subtract or otherwise change something. Well, Chapter 5 is going to need to be entirely rewritten. It introduces a main cast member, who I didn’t know when I created her. I discovered who she was as I went along. Now that I’m on the second draft, I need to make her match up with what I learned about her in the first draft. For instance, I’d originally intended for her and the PI main character to hook up. That isn’t how it turned out. She ended up hooking up with the caveman and the PI found love elsewhere, with a character I hadn’t even conceived of when I started writing. Hence the need for a new Chapter 5.

Because that’s both the joy and the bane of being a pantser: there’s no road map. You sit down and you find out what happens. You may not even have a plot when you begin; I didn’t with this book. I started with two characters and a premise: a caveman, claiming to be a fictional character, hires a private investigator to track down his author and find out why he’s been pulled into the real world. Plot, characters, incidents, ending and themes all popped up as I went along. When I was done I had a contradictory mess, but at least it had a linear plot and a satisfactory ending. And both my protags found true love. Who could ask for anything more?

That was the first draft. Now I’m on the second draft, where I have to make it all make sense. The second draft is for actual writing. Here’s where the fun begins.

For example: the woman in Chapter 5. She’s another fictional character, a ripoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (The publisher specialized in pulp-style knockoff series.) She was pretty generic when I started writing her. Then a chapter or so later, out of nowhere, she started speaking with a New England accent, surprising both me and my PI protag. Not a problem; far from it, in fact. It helped me develop her background. She’s a descendant of Puritans, trained to hunt and destroy supernatural monsters that threaten humanity. As the story went along, I discovered she’s also part demon and can talk to ghosts. For her intro, all I needed was to establish the accent, and show a flash of demon red in her eyes to convince the PI that a) she wasn’t just into cosplay, and b) there might just be something to the caveman’s outrageous story after all. She clinches it with another bit I’d originally introduced later on: she has a magic wad of cash that never runs out, so she can handle expenses when she’s on a case. Proof she’s not from around here. It also explains how fictional characters eat and have homes when they never appear to work at paying jobs. It helps the PI accept the Twilight Zone episode he’s now living in, and he allows her to join their hunt for the missing writer. And now we’re on our way.

Sounds like a pain in the ass, doesn’t it? Yeah, it can be at times. It can also be a lot of fun. Because this is primarily a mystery story, it allows me to play with the readers. The search for the missing writer is just the surface plot. One of the characters isn’t who he appears to be. This leads to a major twist at the climax, which I need to set up so readers won’t throw the book across the room. That means sprinkling in the kinds of clues that don’t look like clues but make sense when you get to the end. A great one hit me out of nowhere as I was nearing the end of the book. I decided to leave that aspect in, and have started laying the groundwork all the way back in Chapter 1. It also ties in to a side note I included that came from the original flash scene, where the caveman complains about retcons—how his writer gave him a sister and killed her off all in the space of a page, and he’s left to deal with memories and emotions for a person who never existed until that moment. That’s a clue now. Wonder if M. Night Shyamalan had as much fun writing The Sixth Sense as I am with this?

That picture up top is a clue too. It’s the scene in Star Wars where Han Solo says, “Here’s where the fun begins.” Mr. Ford never personally appears in my story, but his influence is felt. Indirectly, he’s the reason the writer ends up living where the characters finally find him. Personally, I’m more in the Indiana Jones camp, wandering around a jungle of words looking for hidden treasures. Not to mention my favorite Indy line: “I’m making this up as I go.” If that’s not a pantser, I don’t know what is. For you other pantsers out there, have a blast!

The World's Best Motivator

First of all, updates. Once again I got completely blocked on the series, but I did finally complete the side project, back around the end of last year. It turned out pretty decently. Recently—like, the other week—I started a second draft, now that I know what the plot is and have a better handle on who the characters are. I was going to knuckle down and get back into writing in March, but my paying job had other ideas and I ended up booked solid in back-to-back assignments for the entire month. Throw in another flare-up of my video game addiction and March was pretty much a wash, as far as writing was concerned. January and February didn’t fare much better, for similar reasons.

But that was March. It’s a whole new month now, and I’ve got a whole new reason to get off my butt and get serious about producing books to put out on the market. This could finally be the motivator that pokes a hole in my procrastination balloon.

Thanks to aging and a low taxable income, for the last several years I’ve qualified to have my taxes done for free by the United Way. At first it was necessary: even with the low income, I needed to file a tax return in order to qualify for affordable health insurance. Me turning 65 and already being on Social Security automatically got me enrolled on Medicare, which took care of that. But I still have to file taxes every year, due to the paying job. It doesn’t pay what it used to, but between that and Social Security I can get by pretty well. The problem is that it’s contractor work, so technically I’m self-employed. Which means the outfit I’m working for doesn’t take taxes out of my monthly paycheck; I have to account for that myself, plus the percentage allotted to SS and Medicare. Let’s stop and ponder for a moment the fact I’m both collecting and still obliged to pay into SS and Medicare, and then we’ll move on to the punch line.

For the last three-four years I’ve been okay. I always end up paying local taxes, but it’s a fairly small amount. State and Federal usually evened out, but again, at a small amount. The last two years I’ve owed State taxes, but it’s been so low and given my age I’ve qualified for tax forgiveness and didn’t have to pay anything. That’s something I wouldn’t have known about, which is why I’m happy to let trained volunteers calculate my taxes for me.

Here’s something else I didn’t know about: the Earned Income Credit deduction I’ve been getting should have ended when I turned 65. Except the Feds extended it because so many people hit the financial skids when Covid shut everything down. I’ve been getting a bonus deduction these last couple years and didn’t know. This year the Feds put an end to the Covid aid extensions, cancelling my Earned Income Credit. Which left me owing the Federal government $700 in taxes. So that’s what a heart attack feels like.

It gets better. The tax pro recommended I pay estimated quarterly taxes to avoid this happening again next year. This is how contractors, and freelance writers and editors, usually handle it. Which is fine if you’re not already living paycheck to paycheck. And don’t have any unexpected other expenses. Like the root canal I’m already scheduled for next week. At least Medicare will cough up a portion of that.

The easiest solution, of course, would be to drop the paid job. Except that would leave me even worse off financially. Given the number of layoffs I went through during my 35 years in the workplace (five times, in four different professions) and the fact most of the jobs from the ‘90s onward barely paid a living wage, I’m lucky I qualified for Social Security in the first place. The contract job keeps me just above water, and now the gov’mint wants their cut again. Yes, the same gov’mint that keeps threatening to gut Social Security and Medicare. Wonder how much Mitch McConnell paid in taxes last year?

And don’t tell me to cut back. I’ve done that. I’ve been doing that. Prices keep going up anyway. Don’t tell me to find another job that pays better. Now that I’m on SS, I’m only allowed to earn so much per month. Go over the limit and they dock the difference from your SS payment, so everything evens out again.

The only solution, at least in my case, is to get my fingers in gear and start writing. Royalties are still income and still get taxed, but they only come in on a quarterly basis. Maybe I can slip them in through the back door and not screw up the SS payments. I might even be able to stash most in a separate account to cover taxes in the spring, freeing up the SS and contractor income for everyday expenses, with a little left over for fun. Or a miracle could happen and I could hit it big, and wouldn’t even need the other paychecks. It happened to E. L. James, and the guy who wrote The Martian, and the woman who cashed in on Bigfoot porn. Anything can happen, and a girl can dream.

And that’s why I’ll be hopping back into the saddle and getting the series written, while also tackling the second draft of the side project and who knows, writing a couple of shorter things along the way. United States Federal Government, I owe it all to you. Literally. I’ll be seeing you folks at the ballot box. Don’t expect me to contribute to anyone’s re-election campaign. 

The Fault's in My Stars

 

Hey there! Welcome back. Where have I been and what have I been up to? The usual: screwing off, losing track to time, getting caught up in the paid work and making a lot of excuses. Somehow I managed to finish the side project; that’s currently sitting in longhand form on my nightstand, waiting for me to start researching and rewriting. Still marginally stalled on the series, but I’m getting back into it, slowly but surely.

The good news is, all this foot-dragging isn’t my doing. It’s the fault of the universe itself.

How so? I’ll tell you. Back around October, I think it was, I was having my morning tea with the radio on and the morning show DJs started talking about astrology and Mars being in retrograde. I paused to pay attention, and learned the planet Mars is a source of aggression, activity and motivation. When Mars goes into retrograde, the opposite takes hold. Energy flags, motivation sags, progress drags and next to nothing gets done. Until Mars moves into a better galactic headspace, you’re just pretty much screwed.

In short, the universe itself is against me. I knew it all along!

So that’s the reason you haven’t heard from me, and why I’m having trouble focusing on my goals and cutting it close on the paid work’s deadlines and making next to no headway on the writing. Damn Mars fell down on the job and dragged the rest of us along with it. According to the person on the radio, this bad patch, which has been going on since before Halloween, will end on January 12. Just in time for Friday the 13^th, which comes with its own negative baggage.

Not that I’ve ever really believed in astrology or superstition, but when the alternative is to admit you’re either depressed or lazy, which straw are you going to grab at?

So don’t expect too much from me until at least the end of next week. At least I didn’t need to waste time and energy making resolutions this year. Of course, once the retrograde ends I’ll be out of excuses (and, coincidentally, out of paid work, unless they book me up with more assignments) and may have to actually put my money where my mouth is and start pounding out publishable product.

Hmmm…wonder what Saturn is up to these days…?

Ah, Screw It

 

UPDATE: Very little progress on the series. At the moment I’m more focused on finishing the side project, which is almost at the end. This morning I killed an important character. I’ve known for weeks this was coming and I still cried over it. Luckily that scene is followed by a happier one which I’ll be writing later so I can put myself in a better mood. Then it’ll be done and I’ll have no choice but to work on the series. Or find (or create) another excuse not to. The drama continues…

***

I’ve been trying to write this blog over almost a week now. The problem was my chosen topic: character diversity in writing. It’s a touchy subject…so ultimately I’ve decided not to touch it.

Here’s the deal: when I conceived the series several years ago, I made the conscious decision that my heroes would all be straight white men. I had my reasons. In the current political climate, that right there is enough to get me cancelled. I recall there was a flurry of condemnation over the Throne of Glass series, where Sarah J. Maas neatly paired up all her major characters in traditional boy-girl relationships. Even the one who proclaimed on the page he was bisexual. Even the one a segment of the readership insisted should have been a lesbian, regardless of how Maas, the writer and creator of the character, saw her. (Upon reflection, she probably should have been a lesbian, or at least bi. Maybe even asexual. Their scenes together were awkward, to say the least. Those two had no chemistry at all.) Readers blasted Maas for promoting “the het agenda.”

Welp, too bad. She’s the author. That’s how she wanted to write it. Apparently the readership was good with it too, because Maas became and continues to be a best-selling author. Maybe not to a vocal minority of fandom, but you can’t please everybody. These days it seems like you can’t please anybody.

So I’m not going to try. I’m going to go ahead and write my books the way I want to, the way the story tells me it wants to go. Anyway, just because characters start out white and/or straight doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. I thought the side project’s cast would be solid Caucasian. Boy, was I wrong. Turns out one character was African-American, which changed the ethnicity of two others, all of them playing vital roles in the story. That’s the way diversity is supposed to work. I feel my book is better now. They added to the tale.  If having diverse characters makes no overall difference, if you’re putting (insert ethnicity/gender identity here) into your story just to check off a box, it’s tokenism and you’re short-changing everybody—you, your story, the readers, and the characters. It’s just as bad as exclusionism. And you’re going to get lambasted anyway no matter what you do, because there are always going to be people who scream just to hear themselves make noise. Please yourself. If your work has merit, it will find an audience.

***

Here’s how you don’t do diversity right. (Disclaimer: the following rant is based on rumors that may or may not prove to be true. Only time will tell. Given the players involved, I’m inclined to believe the worst. The rant is also personal opinion. I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong, but…)

If you’re a Marvel Comics fan and/or a fan of Disney’s MCU, you’re probably one of the hordes excited at the news that the X-Men will finally, officially be joining (rejoining?) the Marvel Universe. Years back, before Marvel started making their own movies, they sold off film rights to their heavy hitters to other studios—Spider-Man to Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox. Then Marvel Studios opened for business, and built an empire on their B-, C-, and D-listers like Iron Man, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Then Disney bought Marvel. And then they bought Fox. They couldn’t pry Spidey away from Sony, but they were able to do a crossover deal to get Spidey on Disney-owned screens. And now, thanks to Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, it looks like we’ll soon get the true Marvel versions of X-Men and the FF, now that they’re back where they belong.

Wellllllll….maybe not so much.

Over the past few days I’ve been seeing articles and videos pop up regarding Disney’s plans for the X-Men. According to rumor and alleged leaks, Disney wants to race-swap several if not all of the X-Men because…well, reasons weren’t actually given. Which made me and several commenters wonder if they were going to make Storm white. Imagine the shit-show that would kick up.

I mean, why? Sure, the originals from the ‘60s were WASPs, but after the team went international in the ‘70s reboot that wasn’t an issue any more. As the cast continued to grow, so did representation. At one point Storm, the African woman, was leading the team. The X-Men have been diverse for years. Hell, Nightcrawler’s blue. What more do you want?

Apparently, what Disney doesn’t want is straight white men. It gets worse: according to the leaks and rumors, the plan is to deliberately lure fans in with the white versions we’ve already seen in the Fox movies (like Patrick Stewart’s cameo in MoM) then ease those versions out in favor of more racially-diverse ones. Why Bishop—who’s been black in the comics from Day 1—continues to be absent from the roster I can’t say, and it seems that neither can Disney. Do we really need a black Rogue (already hinted at)? Or an Asian Cyclops? Iceman’s already gay; maybe they’ll leave him alone. But what’s the point?

Here’s my theory, my personal opinion based on these unfounded rumors: it’s not about inclusion, or story, or upgrading characters to reflect the modern era. It’s about money.

For decades comic book writers and artists were work-for-hire. They freelanced for the companies. The characters they drew and the stories they wrote became property of the company. This was true for Marvel and DC, at any rate. I assume it was true for Harvey, Charleton, Fawcett, and the other companies. That was the industry. Comics were cheap, disposable entertainment for kids. The idea that some dweeb in tights would bring moviegoers into theaters worldwide to the tune of billions of dollars was undreamed of.

Enter Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton’s take on Batman. There was movie gold in them thar capes. The writers and artists who’d written those stories and designed those capes, costumes and characters naturally wanted a piece of the action. The companies said no, they owned the rights, they were entitled to reap the financial rewards.

Legal battles sprang up. You may have noticed the dearth of new, original characters from the Big Two over the years, and the growing number of independent publishers. Nobody wants to pour their efforts, let alone their heart and soul, into a character that could end up earning millions not just from movies or TV but from merchandising, for some corporate suit while the creators are scraping by on mac ‘n’ cheese. Things have gotten better over time, with more creators getting screen credit and therefore additional checks. But corporations run things now, and there are ways around doing what’s right.

Which is why I believe Disney is planning to race-swap, maybe even gender-swap, the white characters out of the picture. Those are the ones created by those hard-working writers and artists all those years ago. The people now demanding their fair share. But wait. Thor’s a woman now. That’s not who you created. This is a different character, derivative of yours but not your creation and therefore you don’t get any money. Sorry, writer/artist person, looks like you’re SOL. (Google Gerry Conway, Alan Brennert or Paul Dini with the key word royalties and let me know what you find. Or Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos, to find out where the real money in movies is for comics creators.)

And that’s why we now have a gay Superman (who’s not Clark Kent), a black Batman (who’s not Bruce Wayne) and why we’re liable to have a black Prof. X in the future. Because corporations are greedy and cheap. They’ve got 50 years’ worth of stories and characters to mine for gold, and they don’t want to share even a penny with the prospectors who discovered the mine. At least, that’s my take. When I sell the film rights of my series, I’m going to include a clause in the contract that they can’t race- or gender-swap any of my characters without permission. The series is erotic romance, with threesomes and foursomes and people doing it with vampires and werewolves, so I’d think race would be the least of their concerns. Stay tuned…    

 

 

Secret Origins

 

Challenge update: no real progress since my last entry. Hopefully, that’s about to change. The paid work went out last week, the side project’s almost done, and bad weather has forced mowing the lawn to the back burner. I’ve still got the procrastination issues, but have a better handle on what’s causing them. Dealing with and conquering them is a whole other problem. For example, I’m writing this blog instead of writing the book. Still, it’s not playing computer card games, so it’s a step in the right direction. Once this is done and posted, I’ll see about typing up some longhand. Or go take a shower. When it comes to self-improvement, still a work in progress here.

***

Today we return to the topic of, “Where do you get your ideas?” As we learned a couple weeks ago, the side project came out of two unrelated flash scenes that my brain decided went together like peanut butter and chocolate. Or chocolate and peanut butter. Either way, that Reese’s Cup of a book is very nearly done, so clearly Brain had its neurons together on that one.

The series, on the other hand, grew out of another problem of mine, a case of advanced sequelitis. More often than not, something I write sparks ideas for sequels, continuations, spinoffs and updates. This particular one falls under the subheading “spinoff.” To understand its origins, we need to go back to 2011 and the not-quite-a-trilogy that gave birth to my latest literary headache.

I’ve always read in a number of genres—mystery, romance, some mainstream, Stephen King (he’s in a class by himself)—but my main fix was science fiction/fantasy. Up until the early 2000s, I considered myself a writer of that last, though every now and then I considered writing a romance, mostly for a few extra bucks. I know of at least two (female) SFF writers who churned out the occasional gothic back in the ‘60s to help put food on the table. Probably some guys, too. Category romances were short, straightforward, and could be whipped up in a couple of weeks if you put your mind to it and didn’t stop to do housework. Then, as now, earning a living as a writer wasn’t easy.

But it wasn’t until the erotica ebook explosion that I seriously got into the game. A publisher advertised for stories for a paranormal anthology. Fantasy romance. Only half out of my wheelhouse. I sent in a story and got rejected. I sent the story to a second publisher and this time got a contract—and, eventually, royalty checks. I was on my way!

I kept to the fantasy/paranormal subgenre in my next couple books (write what you know). Then one night I scribbled a flash scene involving a reporter interviewing a human who’d been raised by vampires. Interesting premise, but not enough to hang a book on. It needed something else. That turned out to be me answering a question never raised in vampire romances: “How to the guys, um, function if they’re technically dead?” The answer was, by overeating. A vampire who takes in too much blood at once gets horny to the point he or she needs to have sex or they die. My nascent romance dealt with a human woman working in a brothel that catered to paranormal creatures, and the vampire client she falls in love with.

And then the plot took a major swerve when I became obsessed with the TV show Supernatural. My prostitute suddenly switched to male, and I became a writer of paranormal M/M. If you’ve ever read my book Belonging (hint), take a close look at my description of Jeremy. I got into the show because of Castiel, but writing that book turned me into a Sam girl. Cas had a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameo as the slayer who attacks Jeremy’s vampire family. There were other minor jokes scattered in there as well, including the one that eventually led to me struggling to write an eight-book series. I’m leading up to that.

(Disclaimer: I want it known that I’d already finished the book and was about to sub it to the publisher when they aired the episode where Dean was turned into a vampire. I was not ripping them off. It was sheer coincidence. Though to me that scene where Dean cleans out the vampire nest will always be Wally’s assault on the brothel. More coincidence. Must have been something in the air. I can’t explain that line in the later episode where the girl says to Sam, “Maybe you’re a hooker.” Or the one a couple seasons later, where Crowley referred to Sam and Dean as “the Scarecrow and the Tin Man.” No one ever took me to court for plagiarism or copyright infringement. Maybe I’d better shut up while I’m ahead.)

Anyway. A year after that (my procrastination issues go way back) I wrote a sequel, Legacy, to answer the question, “Can the undead have children?” where Wallace and Jeremy add a woman to their growing flock. There was more of Cas, AKA the Preacher, in this one. Two side characters, Gus and Annie Stanton, also had larger roles. Annie was that joke I mentioned earlier. She was originally Anna from season 4, which is where she got her long red hair, but when I started writing her dialogue I heard a Texas accent, more fitting to an Annie than an Anna. She and her husband Gus were old friends of Wally’s, from their days as a slayer team, until the two got married and left the slayer biz. At this point they were in their 50s, having aged like normal humans, unlike vampire Wallace. I got a few nudges to complete their story, in a future where the orphaned girl they adopted grows up, but nothing ever came of it.

Nothing ever came of my intended sequel either, which would have told Preacher’s story. I tried, but couldn’t quite make it work and eventually abandoned it. However, there was one scene where the love interest, a vampire/human hybrid woman (introduced in Legacy) is researching slayers on the internet. She comes across a mention of the Colts, a family of Texas cowboys who double as vampire slayers. I chose “Colt” as a nod to the Winchesters, and made them Texans because Jared and Jensen are both Texas boys. My obsession with the show had begun to fade by then, but the in-jokes didn’t have to.

Wait. Whoa. Hold on thar, pardner. Wasn’t Annie, my retired slayer, from Texas? Stanton was her married name. What if she’d been born a Colt?

And just like that, I had a premise for a series. Long ago, in the wake of the Civil War, vampires invaded Texas and were turned back by the Colts. A century later (1960s) the suckers tried again, and were repelled again, this time with a teenaged Annie as part of the defense. Afterward Annie left Texas, became a slayer, married Gus and retired from monster hunting. But now, in yet another century, the bats are back again. Now widowed, with her children grown and nothing to look forward to but a retirement home, Annie returns to Texas to help her kinfolk fight off this latest attack. Because that’s what the Colts are all about.

Naturally, procrastinating me only fiddled with this and didn’t get around to any actual writing until around last year. Why now? Because I could use a couple of extra bucks, and the publisher likes series books with lots’a hot sex and multiple partners. Sure, I can do that. Also because the books that gave rise to this idea have a clause in their contracts, giving the publisher right of first refusal on any book I write that shares characters, locales, themes or concepts with books they’ve published. Since Annie appears in the series, I’m under contractual obligation to offer it to them first. I have no problem with that. I don’t mind having all related books under one publisher’s banner. Now I don’t have to spring for editing or covers. Those get expensive, and like I said, making a living as a writer isn’t easy.

I’ve got the plot; I’ve got the characters; I’ve got ideas. I’ve got the time. All I need to do is write the thing. Which brings us back to my procrastination issues, which I’m still struggling with. Yeah well. No one ever said life was easy.